Since my eleventh birthday Mom has insisted that I could talk to her about anything, no matter what. She promised that she would listen to what I had to say without interruption until I had said my piece. I was unsure at the start but she has always kept her promise. Once again uncertainty clouds my mind.
I'm Daniel Carter, or Wash to the small group of friends I hung around with. You can figure out how that name came about on your own. I live at 1224 Summer Hill Drive with my Mom, Kate, short for Katherine Mary and Dad, James Aaron. Grandma Carter still calls him Jimmy which still ticks him off, he changed his name to James after Jimmy C was voted into the White House.
Dad is a production engineer at the Mills tractor plant, the Mills plant is the single largest employer in Billington. Everyone in Billington knows of a family member or a friend who works at the plant. It was at Mills that a seventeen year old Katherine Jones first met twenty seven year old assistant engineer James Carter.
I attend the local community college, I was taking business and mechanics; all the courses attended by the offspring of their employees are fully funded by the plant; my reasons were simple, I didn't want to add to the financial burden that I already was to my parents. I also decided to take extra music classes.
Mom surprised me by persuading Dad to use some of my college fund to buy me a set of wheels for my birthday. Dad wanted me to buy a two year old Nissan that was being off loaded by one of his bowling friends, saying that it was economical, easy to maintain and reliable. Mom was more practical minded and made a case for me to buy half share of a minivan which she could also use. I wanted a pickup truck.
I compromised; mom chose a silver minivan and I bought a half share. In the meantime my Uncle Bob, owner of an auto repair shop and gas station, used his contacts and located a 53 Chevy step side that had been in storage for the past eight years.
I used a little of what was left of my college money to take Mom and Dad, Uncle Bob and my Aunt Paula out to dinner at Rossi's in the Quadrant. Rossi's is a local family Italian restaurant that served the best pizza in town. It was a thank you for everything that they had done for me. Even though Mom and Dad both came from large families, I considered the five of us to be, in all intents and purposes, my family.
The evening was a stone wall hit after I had also volunteered to be the designated driver; Dad and Uncle Bob had a few too many glasses of red wine and Aunt Paula hadn't been that far behind them both. Mom was as usual in control and after two glasses with her dinner she drank mineral water. When we arrived home I had to help Mom carry Aunt Paula inside and then upstairs to our spare room, where I left her to sort out her sister. Returning to the minivan I then had to guide Uncle Bob and Dad inside. I managed to get them as far as the den where they then set about making light work of a bottle of Jack. Leaving them to punish themselves even further I went in search of Mom to see if she needed help. Mom had undressed Aunt Paula, when I arrived at the door she was lying on the bed wearing a matching set of fire red bra and pants that was high cut at the waist, the bra pushed Aunt Paula's breast into perfect globes. I could see the dark circles of her areolas through the sheer lacy fabric. Looking over the swell of her stomach I noticed a lack of darkness in her panties. I was shocked when I realised that Aunt Paula shaved her pussy. Give me a break, it's a pussy when your Mom's standing in the same room and you are ogling her sister.
I don't remember how long I just stood there looking at Aunt Paula lying on the bed until Mom walked over to me and whispered in my ear. To this day I can't remember what she said; I will never forget seeing a strange glint in her eye as she looked at me.
I was out of the house early the next morning; unlike the others I was working to pay off the professional work that I would need to have done on my truck. Uncle Bob organised the engine rebuild and the chassis powder coating and translated the cost into hours working at the gas station. I was ahead and had banked enough hours for a full body respray. The original colour was a flat grey; my new truck would be New York cab yellow.
I returned home just after lunch to find only Mom had managed to rise from her bed, I found her sitting on the patio nursing a cup of coffee; typically she had no signs of a hangover. The others managed to climb from their beds or, in Dad and Uncle Bob's case, the floor in the den later that afternoon. Mom made the best of the opportunity to make fun of them and still reminded them from time to time.
Life at home has its own routine. Dad works twelve hour day shifts, Monday to Friday, starting at 06:00; he was also a member of two bowling leagues and was out of the house at least four nights a week and sometimes five if there was a competition or the committee held a meeting.
College started at 08:00 and, other than on Fridays, my last class finished at 16:00. I usually worked three nights a week after school, on Wednesday I took the extra classes in music. Mom was a homemaker from when she married dad; recently, in the last eighteen months and after a great deal of persuasion by her older sister, my Aunt Paula, they started up a small catering business making one off celebration cakes for birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and other special events; one woman even commissioned a divorce cake for her freedom party. The business was now thriving after the divorce cake was pictured in an article in the Billington Gazette.
Dad and Uncle Bob played golf on Saturday; their idea of exercise was a four hour ride in a golf cart, followed by lunch and then a seat at the poker table. Mom and Aunt Paula managed to attend aerobic classes at least a couple of times a week. I didn't go in for team sports keeping fit by cycling the seven miles between home and college twice a day. Saturday I would head up into the local hills on my bike and think nothing of covering 40 or 50 miles. My goal was to compete in the annual Iron Mountain bike race. The rest of my free time I practiced my music.
Sunday was a family day.
So here I am, sitting at the kitchen table, Mom is sitting next to me her eyes locked on mine, the muscles in my legs were burning; it's Saturday afternoon and I have just showered and changed after a hard 55 mile ride out into the Black Hills. The ride had done nothing to fix my mind.
The turmoil started the previous day. My last class had been cancelled so I headed home early. When I pulled into Summerhill I spotted Aunt Paula's Cherokee parked in the driveway next to the minivan. Pulling into the driveway I dismounted and walked around the side of the house. Mom and Aunt Paula were sitting on the deck, still dressed in their sweats from the gym.
Though they were sisters Mom and Aunt Paula were not alike. Maybe it was due to the nine years that separated their births; Mom told me once that Grandpa and Grandma Jones hadn't planned on having anymore kids after Paula and that she was an accident. I'm eternally grateful for people making those kinds of mistakes.
Aunt Paula was five-four with short blonde hair, a cleavage that she liked to show and an ass that you could set your watch to as she walked. Mom was tall, five-ten, slim in an athletic way with long dark brown hair that reached to between her shoulder blades. Aunt Paula's vanity was her weakness; she wouldn't consider walking around her house without make-up and had undergone eye surgery when her sight started to weaken. Mom was a polar opposite and would happily go through the day as nature intended; when her eyesight start to weaken Mom took to wearing spectacles. Irrespective of their differences there was one thing that they did have in common, they were both lookers. It was only as I grew older that I saw the effect Aunt Paula had on men, old and young alike, she may have been racked and stacked but it was her butt that drew admiring glances. I'd heard several comments from the guys at college who, thinking that I was out of earshot, would state that they wouldn't mind getting some of that. I was glad that they saw Mom as the plain Jane sister and that suited her because she was a mom.
"Hey Mom, Hi Aunt Paula," I called out.
"Hi Honey," Mom called back. "How come you're early?"
"My last class was cancelled."
"How's school? " Aunt Paula asked. I felt her eyes wander over me.
"It's going OK," I answered.
"Do you want me to make you some lunch Honey?" asked Mom.
"That's ok Mom. I'll grab something later."
