Chapter 5

"And here's Robert when he had the chicken pox," Mom said. "It was just awful. All that itching. Like a big diaper rash."

"Oh." Shelly nodded.

"Right after that, let's see ... That's right. He fell out of a tree and broke his wrist."

"Ouch!"

"Such a clumsy boy." Mom clucked her tongue. "And then he had his tonsils removed when he was nine."

"That's a lot of ice cream," Shelly said, smiling at me. "You look pretty cute."

"His father took this picture. Caught him flying right over the handlebars, see?"

How many mothers keep a photo album dedicated to illness and injury? Not many, I imagined, and I shuddered to think of Shelly's opinion. One natural disaster after another arranged in chronological order. Never mind the school pictures and family snapshots at Yellowstone. No birthdays or Christmas mornings, just Robert in pain. This was why I didn't bring flowers!

"Do you want to see some more?" Mom asked. "I have so many pictures, let's see..."

"No," I replied.

"I'd love to," Shelly said, overruling me.

We were sitting in the living room, except Mom liked to call it her front parlor, as if she'd actually grown up in age when people had such things. She wasn't even fifty yet and she acted like she was pushing seventy. How many mothers do that? I think she actually lamented the fact that she couldn't remember the day President Kennedy was shot, being all of a year old at the time.

"Ohhhh..." Mom smiled. "These are his high school pictures."

"What?" I tried to snatch the album away. "Don't show her those!"

"Robert!" She slapped at my hand and Shelly stifled a giggle, or pretended to anyway. I think she enjoyed the way my mother teased me. It probably explained why they were getting along so well.

"Mmmm..." Shelly smiled. "He looks so serious."

"I wish he would have been serious," Mom sighed. "All he was ever cared about was that hussy, Marilee Johnson."

"Oh," I said, rolling my eyes. "She's a hussy now?"

"Who?" Shelly looked at me.

"My old girlfriend."

"His only girlfriend," Mom sniffed. "Until he met you, dear."

She smiled and patted Shelly's knee, flipping through the album to find...

"Not my prom picture!"

"There she is," my mom tapped the photograph, "Marilee Johnson."

"She's pretty," Shelly said, narrowing her eyes the way a cat will when it sees a mouse.

"Hmph!" Mom snorted. "She was two months pregnant when this was taken."

"Really?" Shelly turned her suspicious eyes on me.

"With my best friend's baby," I hastened to add. "I didn't know anything about it."

"She was cheating on you?"

"She broke my poor Robert's heart," Mom said, dabbing at her left eye. "He cried for days."

"Marilee told me she was saving her virginity," I explained, "for our wedding night. And I didn't cry."

"You were going to marry her?"

"It's all they talked about," Mom said. "Well ... Thank goodness they didn't!"

"Did she break your heart?" Shelly asked, teasing me with an impish smile. She seemed much too happy now that she knew my old girlfriend was a cheating slut.

"I got over it," I replied dryly. "Anybody want to play Yahtze?"

"Oh, you poor baby," she sighed, pulling me close and giving me a kiss on the lips. "Do you want me to kiss it for you? Make it all better, huh?"

She kissed me again, but much deeper this time. I hadn't expected Shelly's tongue, not in front of my mother, but that's precisely what I was getting. She stroked my chest and filled my mouth with her tongue, and even added a low, whimpering sort of moan. The sexy kind, like she was somebody's little girl giving up her virtue after Sunday school. It made my dick hard for some reason, but that could have been Shelly's tits rubbing against me, too.

"Uh ... More tea?" Mom asked.

"Are you going to tell her?" Shelly asked, breathing the words loud enough for my mother to hear.

"Tell me what?"

"I don't, um..." I glanced at my mom, which only made it worse.

"If you don't, I will."

"Tell me what?" Mom repeated, not knowing if she should be smiling or not. Her lips went up and down as if trying to decide.

"I really think we should wait," I said.

There was no way I could tell my mother that my new girlfriend, the one she liked so much, was really a man. It would only confuse her, if I was lucky, or kill her, if I wasn't. I mean, we'd had a nice afternoon. We'd had a pot roast and mashed potatoes. I'd given Mom her flowers. We'd had our awful English tea and waded through the life of her little boy, chicken pox and all. Why spoil it?

"I'm going to tell her," Shelly decided, being headstrong by nature and not a little stubborn, as I was learning.

"Somebody had better tell me something," Mom said. "Robert?"

"No," I said, begging Shelly with my eyes. "Please?"

"Well..." She looked down as if composing her thoughts. "Robert has asked me to marry him."

"Oh!" Mom smiled.

"What?" I blinked at her.

"And I said yes!" Shelly practically squealed, and then they were hugging for some reason.

"That's wonderful," Mom said. "I'm so happy for the both of you. Oh, Robert!"

She had to hug me as well and my mother had started to cry. For real this time. Even Shelly had tears running down her cheeks, I was surprised to see.

"Why wouldn't you want to tell me, Robert?" Mom wondered, leaving me completely at a loss. Thankfully, Shelly was right there with a ready answer.

"Because he hasn't given me a ring yet," she explained, holding up her left hand and wiggling her empty finger. "Bobby's a little self-conscious about it."

"A ring?" Mom looked surprised suddenly. I mean, even more than she had when she found out I was getting married. Or maybe it wasn't surprise, but the sort of look people get when a light bulb goes off.

"Are you alright?" I wondered.

"I'll be right back," she said, leaving Shelly and I to sit on the sofa.

"Are you crazy?" I hissed. "I didn't ask you to marry me!"

"You didn't want me to tell her about my penis, did you?"

"No! Of course not."

"So?" She giggled. "What are you mad about?"

"Shelly!"

"You love me anyway," she said. "So I don't see what difference it makes."

"Marriage is a big deal," I protested. "You can't just tell my mom we're getting married and..."

"Shhh ... Here she comes," Shelly whispered. "Act normal."

"Normal?" I shook my head at the word. I didn't even know what normal was anymore, not since that first time Shelly had knocked on my door. That hadn't even been a week ago and now we were engaged?

"This is my engagement ring," Mom said, even before she could sit down. "It belonged to my mother and if I'd had a daughter, well ... I would have given it to her."

"It's beautiful," Shelly said, and it was a pretty big diamond, I guess.

I hadn't seen it since my dad had run off with his secretary. Mom had taken off her rings and I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd melted them down into bullets, which is what she'd threatened to do at the time. I guess she hadn't done anything but put them away ... until now.

"Maybe it'll bring you more luck than I had," Mom said, giving the ring to Shelly.

"What?" I stared at her.

"I can't take your engagement ring," Shelly said, but she was already slipping it onto her finger.

"Of course you can," Mom insisted. "Look at that. A perfect fit!"

They had to hug some more, naturally. And they were crying again? I'd totally underestimated my mother's desire to see me hitched. Jesus! What would she say if she ever found out the truth? That Shelly had been my shemale prostitute birthday present. Mom would kill me.

"She's going to kill me," I sighed. "I can't believe my mom gave you her engagement ring."

"I know!" Shelly was all smiles. "It's gorgeous. I'm so happy, Bobby. Thank you!"

"For what?" I wondered, debating whether to take the tunnel or the bridge. For being a Sunday night, the traffic was murder!

"For asking me to marry you," she replied. "For being so sweet and handsome and wonderful to me all the time."

Shelly was all over me. Seriously. I had trouble driving, almost side swiping a Caddy because her hands kept roaming over my shoulders and chest, my thighs, and even my crotch. Just then the girl seemed determined to jerk me off in my pants while I did my best to ignore the constant ache in my balls. I wasn't exactly in the mood for playing around, you know? I'd just gotten engaged.

And now my transsexual fiancé was trying to convince me that it had been my idea. Maybe she wanted to convince herself as well, I couldn't be sure. I had the brief thought that Shelly might be one of those psycho girlfriends that are always showing up in the Post. You know, the ones who move into a guy's life while he's on vacation or whatever. Or worse, one of those girls who kills her boyfriend and just tells everyone he's on vacation. There's always a story like that in the newspapers and the way Shelly was acting...

Nah. I knew she wasn't going to kill me and I never went anywhere on vacation except to Jersey. I liked playing blackjack and I was actually pretty good at it. Like really good, but I'd always had a head for numbers and counting a five deck shoe isn't as hard as most people think it is. All you have to remember is...

"What?"

"I said I need to stop by my place and pick up a few things," Shelly told me. "It'll just take a minute."

"Yeah. We're going to your place," I said, not quite understanding what she meant.

"Good." She smiled and gave my cock an extra nice squeeze.

"I have to work tomorrow."

"Me too."

"So, um..." I smiled back at her. "I'm dropping you off."

"Excuse me?"

"Right?" My smile faltered. "We both need to get up early and..."

"We're getting married, Bobby."

"Well, yeah, maybe, sorta, I guess."

"I've got the ring to prove it," Shelly reminded me. "So I think I should move in."

"Move in where?"

"Silly!" She giggled. "You're so funny sometimes. I swear, I can't tell when you're teasing me!"

"Oh, yeah," I tried to chuckle, but it didn't come out right.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." I cleared my throat. "Maybe, um ... We should kind of date a little more first. What do you think?"

"I think I should move in with you."

"But ... I'm not sure if I can have pets," I said, thinking quickly. "I'd have to check my lease, you know?"

"I know you're nervous," she sighed, practically curling up in my lap. "But you don't have to be. I'm going to take care of you, Bobby."

"You are?"

"Absolutely," she said, kissing my cheek as if it was all settled. "I'm going to fuck your brains out every night and make you breakfast every morning."

"Okay," I nodded. "Well, um..."

How could I have lost the argument so quickly? That's what I wanted to know. I mean, we'd just started and Shelly had won already? How was that fair?