Chapter 2

"You got your kiss," said Jill, her voice level. "Now go to bed."

"Mommy..." Cindy's voice was so full of something that it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

"Go on to bed. I'll come talk to you in a few minutes. I need to talk to Bob first."

"Don't yell at him!" blurted Cindy. "He didn't want to."

"Go to bed!" barked Jill.

"Okay," sniffed Cindy. "You don't have to yell." She was about to burst into tears, but was trying hard not to.

"Apparently I do," said Jill, though she didn't yell it. "You're still not moving!"

Cindy struggled up off my lap, during which her hand landed right on my boner. Thank goodness she didn't squeeze it, because everybody in the room could see where her hand was. Of course as she removed it, everybody in the room could see what her hand had been on too, as Mr. John Thomas sprang up with a sigh. Had he been able to speak he'd have said something like "Thank goodness, I was about to suffocate! Now ... where's that cute girl I want to ravish?"

I figured I might as well just leave. It was pretty clear I'd blown it.

"I'm sorry," I said, getting up. "I'll just go. I won't come here any more."

"Oh shut up," groaned Jill. "Sit down. We have a lot to talk about."

"Look," I said. "You don't have to go through this. Really, I'll stay away."

"Won't anybody in this family listen to me and do what I tell them?" she snapped. "I was listening the whole time. I know what happened. I don't want you to leave and never come back. Now would you just shut up and talk to me?"

I was reflecting on the concept of being quiet and talking at the same time, when the "I don't want you to leave" part of her comment sank in. She didn't want me to leave?

"Okay," I said. "You start."

Instead of starting, though, she looked around. You know how someone looks both directions, like they think somebody else might be close, and might hear the conversation ... and they don't want that? That's what she did, though who she thought might be listening, I have no clue. Then she went to the stairs that led to the bedrooms, climbed them and peered down the hall. Coming back, she picked the recliner that sat perpendicular to the couch and settled into it. She pulled her legs up under her and turned to face me.

I need to note, here, that Jill got her jammies from the same place her daughter did, but in the ladies department, rather than the vamp section. She was wearing a long T shirt that, while she was standing, had been just long enough to make whether she was wearing panties or not, a legitimate question. When she sat down, though, the lavender panties she was wearing became visible. I tried not to look, which meant I had to look somewhere else. I looked at her breasts. She wasn't wearing a bra either. Her nipples were quite perky.

I know this sounds like I'm some kind of insatiable horndog, doing nothing but checking out any woman I happen to be around. Well, welcome to being a man. Biology demands you evaluate every woman you see. Psychologists love to talk about sex as an addiction. That's because the guy who invented that "malady" couldn't get laid. I'm just being honest about it. I didn't have a fantasy about her. I didn't dream about what she'd look like naked. I just did the evaluation and then looked at her face.

She, too, caught me looking.

"I knew this would happen some day," she said.

I assumed she meant she knew I would molest her daughter some day. It made me a little sad. Then again ... I had just molested her daughter.

"Why didn't you kick me out before this, then?"

She frowned. "Would you stop feeling sorry for yourself. I told you I was listening. I heard you trying to do the right thing."

"I'm confused," I said. "So far, what I've heard you say is that you knew I'd try something with her some day, and you've been pulling surveillance on me."

"Are all men as stupid as you?" she snapped. "I knew she would want to experiment sexually. I did not know it would be with you. I listened because, when she came into my room tonight and I didn't answer her whispered greeting, she said "Goody!" So I knew something was up, and I got up to find out what it was."

"Oh," I said, feeling stupid. "Okay. I understand much better now."

"Do you?" The sarcasm dripped from her words.

"Look. I said I'm sorry. I don't know what you want," I said.

"I want my daughter to remain a little girl forever!" she snapped. Then she sighed and seemed to relax. "But of course that won't happen. If anything I should be happy she chose you."

"Wait!" I said. "You mean you think she did this ... on purpose?"

"Of course she did it on purpose, you idiot," she groaned. "She's curious. She wants to explore. I remember that very well from my own youth. The biggest decision was not what to do ... it was who to do it with!"

"But I'm way older!" I said.

"She knows you. She loves you. You're not scary. You're handsome. You make her feel safe and secure. Need I go on?"

"I'm handsome?" I couldn't help it. A man never passes up a chance to hear a woman say that.

"She thinks so," growled Jill, "but then she's a teenager, and everybody knows how stupid they can be!"

"Okay. I guess I deserved that. I shouldn't have given in, and I really am sorry I crossed the line. I don't want there to be hard feelings between us."

I swear on Grandma Harker's grave that when I said "hard feelings" her eyes dipped to look at my crotch, before they bounced back up. She blushed, and that confirmed what my brain was just then reflecting on. But the fact that she wasn't screaming or calling the cops was something to be very thankful for, so I pushed on past that and asked her the most important question on my mind."

"So ... what do you want me to do?"

I imagined she would tell me what I could not do, and I was willing to agree to whatever it was.

Instead, she said "For now, just sit, while I think about this for a bit."

It was obvious, by now, that I wasn't in nearly as much trouble as I had thought I was. I thought about what Jill had seen and heard. I really had tried to talk Cindy out of it. Still, I hadn't expected - still didn't, for that matter - for Jill to cut me any slack.

I wasn't even close to being ready for what she said next.

"Maybe this isn't such a crazy idea after all. She's going to do it anyway, whether it's with you or not."

I didn't understand, so I just kept silent. She looked over at me. I felt like I was being inspected as her eyes ranged over my body.

"And you're obviously not averse to it," she said.

"Averse to what?" I asked, carefully.

"To doing things with Cindy."

"Things." My mouth was dry as cotton at that moment.

"Don't play innocent with me," she said. "I saw that kiss." She licked her lips. I'm sure it was unconscious.

It was impossible to miss what she was suggesting ... except that it was impossible that she was suggesting it.

"You want me to kiss her again?" My voice cracked on the last word.

"Do you honestly think kissing will be enough and she'll be ready to stop after that?" She looked disgusted. She might as well have said she was disgusted. I got even more confused.

"Well of course not," I said, trying to salvage some shred of my dignity. "But surely you can't be suggesting that I do other ... um ... things ... with her."

"Why not?" asked her mother, a woman I had known for some seventeen years or so, and who I thought I knew better than any other woman. "She's a teenager. It's normal for her to experiment and be curious about sex."

"Yeah, but I'm not sure normal extends to me helping her!" I said, carefully.

"That's the whole point," said Jill, standing up. She started to pace. Her bare legs looked long and smooth. She hadn't pulled the shirt down. Those lavender panties were lacy. I started to berate myself about noticing that when she continued. "You really would help her understand, instead of just trying to get whatever you could get from her. With you teaching her things, she'd have a chance to stop and think about it, and examine what was going on inside her, without the male pushing her on and on and on until she went way past her comfort zone."

"You're making this sound like the class is Fooling Around 101 and I'm the professor," I said, trying to make her see how ridiculous this idea really was.

She stopped and turned to look at me. "That's exactly what I mean!" she said, her face flushed. "If only I could have had a man I could trust to try things with when I was her age. It would have been fabulous, Bob! An experienced man. A gentle man. A patient man. Oh, what a treasure that would have been."

"Jill, honey, listen to yourself. She's supposed to save herself for her husband, not fool around with her uncle!"

She looked me up and down. "What planet do you come from, stranger? That might have been the plan in your youth, but things are different now."

"You want me to have sex with your daughter?" I asked, incredulous.