Chapter 7

She looked like she had the mother of all sunburns. The dye had diluted enough by the time it got to the actual shower head that it had created a smooth, unbroken stain that covered her whole upper body. She'd stepped out of the shower when she realized what was happening, which was why there were only streaks of dripping red down her legs.

"You fucker!" she yelled, standing there naked, wet and mad.

"Me fuck you now?" I said in a high voice.

"This is permanent, Gramps!" she complained. "It'll take forever to wear off."

"Good thing you decided not to marry me. That would look really funny in a wedding gown," I said.

"You know you'll pay for this," she said, her voice firm and suddenly calm.

"Probably," I said. "But you're an amateur, and it was worth it anyway. You look hot." I chuckled. "It actually goes with your hair kind of nice.

She glowered at me. "I'm going to the store to get some hydrogen peroxide," she said. "Maybe I can get some of it off with that."

"I'm buying," I said. "Let me get my keys."

"No, I think you've helped quite enough for one day. Get us something to eat while I'm gone," she said.

She left and I called The Harvest Moon to get some takeout. She was already back by the time I returned with the food. I was alert and careful, but there were no booby traps waiting for me. She was in the bathroom, scrubbing away at her skin.

She didn't say anything during supper, except that she wasn't used to being on the receiving end of things like that. The peroxide hadn't worked. She grumbled, but eventually said, "You got me. I admit it."

It made me over confident. I should have known she'd never cave like that.

Later that night, I was getting what she billed as the winner's blow job, which was a very good blow job She had also gotten a can of whipped cream at the store, and had been squirting little dabs of whipped cream here and there, and then sucking them up. I loved it when she covered the knob of my cock and then sucked it clean. So when I heard the sound of a long release from an aerosol can, and felt something cool being spread all over my groin and balls, I just thought she was going all out with the whipped cream. Then the odor struck me and I sat up like a shot. She was kneeling between my legs, grinning, her hands covered with white. My groin started to burn, and within seconds I felt like my crotch was on fire. I jumped for the bathroom and turned on the cold water.

Nothing happened.

I let out a strangled scream and staggered out of the bathroom.

"Don't be a pussy," she said, standing there wiping her hands on a towel. "It's only Nair."

She went and turned the water back on, but it was already too late for my manly hair. It still burned as she pushed me into the shower and knelt in front of me, but her fingers cleaning me off didn't hurt.

When I was nice and clean, she finished the blow job, right there in the shower. She deep throated me until I came, and then pulled back to suck the knob as I squirted. I forgave her right in the middle of that.

We dried off and went back to bed.

"We're finished now ... right?" she asked as she cuddled up to me.

"I'll never be finished with you," I said. My balls still ached from trying to spurt more than was there.

"I mean with being mean to each other," she said.

"I can't promise I'll never tease you again," I said.

"But we're finished for now," she insisted.

"Yes."

"Good, because all I want to concentrate on for the next few days is making you too weak to walk."

It was much too soon, but my cock tried really hard to stiffen up just then.

It was very strange seeing a part of my body that had had hair for as long as I could remember, now bald as an egg. I also learned something. I had always thought that men who shaved that area were odd, maybe even a little funny, if you know what I mean. But Anna loved the soft, smooth feel of my cock and balls. She spent a lot more time moving her lips around down there, sucking this or that, and playing. And, of course, that got me hard, which meant, of course, that I got laid. It was also very interesting to watch my baldness pressing up against her baldness. And the skin covering my pubic bone slid effortlessly around her slippery slot, which made it feel completely different.

In other words, men ... I'm rethinking whether it's all that macho to hang onto body hair so tenaciously.

If my early life with Sherry had been anything like this, I'd have fought hard to keep her. Maybe that's not fair. It suggests that I wanted Anna just for sex, but it went much deeper than that. I wasn't sure it had ever gone very deep with Sherry, now that I had something to compare it to.

Time of day didn't matter to Anna. The morning before she left, she came into the kitchen naked. I had gotten up before her, which I pretty much always did, and was reading the paper and sipping coffee when she came in. She came to the table, pushed it away from me, sat on my lap sideways and kissed me until I was hard. Then she stood up, pulled my shorts down and straddled me, filling herself when she sat back down. She pushed a nipple against my lips and said, "Nipple love, please." They were the first words she'd spoken that morning.

Television didn't seem to interest her. We'd sit down to watch something, but within ten minutes she was nibbling on my ear, or trying to pull my penis out to suck on it. She would, however, watch TV if she could sit on me, impaled, leaning back against my chest. She'd wiggle while she slowly stroked her clitty, just happy to have me in her. She could sit like that for an hour or more and not even go for an orgasm.

The day came when we hauled her suitcases back to her car. She had agreed to let me follow her home, though we both understood I wasn't going to stay. She wanted me to meet Spencer.

That actually went very well, at least from my viewpoint. It turned out Debby and her husband had moved back into the state when the company he worked for opened a branch there, and Spencer had been staying with Grandma. So we went to Grandma's first. Debby was both surprised and pleased to see me again. I wondered how pleased she'd be when she found out what was going on.

"You're weathering rather nicely," she said, looking me up and down. "As opposed to my daughter, who you have returned to me with red skin for some reason. Do I want to know?"

"Accident," I said. "A practical joke that went awry." I didn't want to dwell on that, so I said "You're as lovely as ever."

"You heard from Sherry recently?" she asked me while Anna and Spencer loaded his things into her car. He was touching her face and I heard her tell him she'd explain later.

"Not for years," I said.

"She's getting divorced again," said Debby.

"Oh," I said. I didn't really care what Sherry did.

"She whines that he didn't respect her individuality." She snorted. "Whatever that means. She should have been happy with you." She shook her head. "But she'll never be happy. Sometimes I wonder what went wrong in her brain."

"I don't know," I said.

"So what are you doing with yourself these days?"

"I play at being retired," I said. "I've gotten into golf, and I like it a lot."

"Any romance in your life?"

I looked away from her. "There are some prospects I'm hoping will work out," I said carefully.

"Those prospects wouldn't happen to involve a very unconventional young woman with a six-year-old little boy, now would they?"

I looked at her. She didn't look hostile, only interested.

"What would make you think that?" I asked.

"Ohhh, little things, I guess," she said carelessly. "Like how her little investigative trip was only supposed to last a week, but she called right in the middle of it and asked if I'd keep Spencer a little longer. She said she'd run into something very interesting and wanted to explore it thoroughly. When I pried she told me to mind my own business."

"I see," I said.

"And, of course, there's the fact that you drove all the way here with her, and everything was packed in her car. I suppose you could be the kind of man who just wanted to make sure she got back safely ... what with your law enforcement background and all. And then there's the fact that she called you nice when I asked how the trip was going. We're not all that close, Bob, but I know enough about you to accept that people might call you smart, or funny, or dangerous, or even an asshole. But nice? The only person I can think of you were ever nice to was me, and even then I thought you might be flirting with me."

"I suppose I was," I sighed.

"But I think the giveaway was that since you arrived, she hasn't looked at you even once. She's completely ignored you the whole time we've been talking. I'm her mother. I think she's afraid I'll know what she's feeling if she looks at you." She looked at her daughter, who was strapping Spencer into the back seat. "You, on the other hand, have been looking at her almost constantly."

"We got along well," I said, trying to sound neutral.

"So you flirt with all the women in this family," she said.

"Let's just say most of the women in this family are worth flirting with," I said.

"You made a mistake with my sister," she said.

"Anna is nothing like your sister," I responded. "No offense."

"None taken. I know Sherry is a selfish bitch," she said calmly. "She always has been. She probably always will be."

Anna marched over, gave her mother a hug, said thank you and looked at me.

"We're ready to go."

"Be right there," I said. She walked off and I turned back to Debby. "You want to talk about this some more?" I asked.

She watched Anna get into the car and close the door.

"No. Maybe. She's a grown woman. She wouldn't listen to me anyway. She doesn't care what I think."

"I do," I said.

"That's why I'm not going to worry about it," she said, putting her hand on my shoulder. "And lord knows she needs a good man in her life. I knew by the way Sherry complained that you must be a good man." She grinned. "I'm sure we'll be seeing more of each other. We can talk then."

"Got it," I said.

Then I got in my car to go meet Spencer on his home turf.

Anna pulled into a parking spot in a lot with twenty-five or thirty other cars in it. I parked down the way a bit and got out. Spencer was standing behind her car, just staring at me as I approached. Anna had already gotten some things out of the car and was trying to hand Spencer his backpack. He wasn't paying any attention to her.

"Hey," I said to him, smiling. "I'm Bob."

"I know," he said. His face was as difficult to read as his mother's was sometimes.

"Want some help with that?" I pointed to his mother, who was now just holding his book bag, watching the two of us.

He looked up, took the bag from his mother and turned back to me.

"No."

"Okay then," I said. I ignored him and gave Anna my attention. "How about you? Want some help?"

"Yes," she said, and started handing me things.

It only took two trips. I got the feeling Spencer wanted some time to evaluate me, so I didn't force my attentions on him. He went back with us to the car on the second trip, and carried his pillow. When we got into her apartment, Anna said she was going to go wash her face, and told Spencer to show me around.

He did so, announcing what each room was before we entered. His room was last. Whether that was intentional or not, I couldn't tell.

"Nice room," I said.

"I guess." He seemed less than impressed, with both the room and me.

I went over to a drawing that somehow looked vaguely familiar.

"Did you do that?" I asked.

"Yes."

"It looks kind of like Van Gogh's Starry Night," I said.

"It is," he said. "I copied it from a book."

"Well how about that," I said, truly impressed. "Got any more like that?"

"I have lots of them," he said. "My mother says she likes you."

"Is that so?" I asked. "How do you feel about that?"

"I don't know."

"I like your mother too."

"Well duh," he said. He didn't sound seven. He sounded about thirteen.

I thought for a moment about how while this boy sounded older than he was, his mother sounded younger than she was. Interesting.

"What does that mean?" I asked, wondering what he'd say.

"How could you not like her?" he asked.

"You got a point there," I admitted.

"She says I have to be nice to you."

"Oh yeah?" I raised my eyebrows. "Tell you what. As long as you don't kick me and stuff, I'd rather you just acted like yourself."

"How can I act like anybody but myself?" he asked.

"Another good point," I said. "You're a smart little boy."

"I know," he said. "Mommy tells me that all the time."

"So can I see your other drawings?"

Instead of answering me verbally, he went to a drawer and opened it. He pulled out a sheaf of papers and handed them to me. I sat down on the bed and started going through them. They were a mixture of normal small child line drawings and copies of a number of famous paintings. I saw what were undeniably the melting clocks of Dali, and a very good rendering of Whistler's Mother, among others. I was impressed. The kid had a lot of raw talent. I pulled out an exceptional rendering of M.C. Escher's Drawing Hands. I had no doubt it was better than what I could do, if I had the patience to sit and copy something like that ... which I didn't.

"I like Escher's drawings," he said, looking at what was in my hands. "He's so bizarre."

"You're a little bizarre yourself," I said. "I can count the seven-year-olds I know who use words like 'bizarre' on one finger."

"I'm not actually seven yet," he said. "I'll be seven in a month."

"Your mother corrects me all the time too," I sighed.

"She's like that," he said seriously. "I'm going to go help her."

I followed him to her bedroom, which we'd only stepped into just long enough for him to say, "This is where Mommy sleeps," before moving on with our tour. Anna was unpacking her suitcase and putting things away. We arrived just in time to see her pull something hot pink out of the suitcase and toss it to one side. Spencer went to the bed and picked up the damaged top to the pink bikini.

"You got new booby patches!" he exclaimed.

"Kind of," she said. She looked at me and then back at Spencer. "Did you show Bob your pirate eye patch?"

"Nope. We looked at art."

"Maybe you can show it to him later."

"Maybe."

I only stayed another hour or so. Basically, while Spencer and I weren't best buddies when I said I had to leave, he didn't stand back and scowl at me either. Nor did he throw anything at me when I kissed his mother goodbye.

"Come live with me," I whispered to her after the kiss.

"I'll think about it," she said.

"I can't live without you," I said softly, trying to sound pathetic.

She poked me in the stomach with a finger. "I know." She grinned.

"He'll warm up to me," I said, glancing at Spencer, who was watching us.

"He already has," she said.

"How can you tell?" I asked.

"Go home," she said, pushing me. "I'll see you later."

"When?" I asked, actually pitiful this time.

She laughed. "When I've decided what to do."

When I got back home, the house seemed empty.

I did a few things that needed doing, and then sat down and wrote an entire story nonstop. She was my muse, even though she wasn't there. When that was done, I decided to take a nap.