Like mother like daughter. Based on the characters originally described in Mary Deanna's Anniversary Fuck by Anonymous.
It was Wednesday. That meant that we'd have Robert Dunbar over for dinner again. Robert is a black man who's supposed to be a friend of my parents, but I suspect that really isn't true. He's been the only black man we've ever had visit us. In fact, I've heard Dad argue with Mom over Robert's visits. Of course, it always ends the same way--Robert comes to visit us anyway.
I didn't understand Mom's insistence that Robert come to dinner on Wednesdays, or that we had to be home to have boring old dinner with them that day, but there it was.
Mom is Deanna Benton--more accurately Mary Deanna Benton, but only Dad and Grandma call her that. Dad's name is Joseph, but he's always been Joe to the rest of the world.
Mom came home from work and began to fix supper. Wednesday suppers were always something special for her, and today she decided to cook her specialty, Mexican food.
"Bethany!" she hollered. "Would you bring your father's clothes down here to wash them?"
I yelled downstairs. "Why me?"
"Because I'm cooking." Then there was a pause. "You don't have to put them in the washer, just bring them down!"
"That's the hardest part," I called back.
"You keep telling me you want to be treated like an adult. I think you can handle it," Mom replied.
So I began to gather up the clothes in Dad and Mom's room. Then I saw some things that surprised me. Since when did Dad wear navy blue silken briefs? He's always been a cotton briefs kind of guy--plain white too. Since when was Dad a size 34 waist? He was a little paunchy and most of his briefs were size 46 or so. These briefs looked more the sort of thing Robert would wear. But why would Robert leave his underwear here?
All right, stop thinking like that. I shook my head and put the rest of the clothes in the basket. As I started to leave their room, I noticed the ankle bracelet, It barely hung out of Mom's jewelry case, but I realized she'd never worn it around us before. I put down the laundry and opened her jewel case. She had two anklets.
Wow, way to come into the twenty-first century, Mom!
The first anklet had a heart with an inscription on it--the letters read D-E-A-N-N-A. I smiled. Then I picked up the second. It too had engraved letters on a matching heart. But these letters read R-O-B-E-R-T.
What the hell?
I put both ankle bracelets back in the jewel case. Deanna and Robert? It was then that I saw the corner of a single photographβa Polaroid picture laying face down and hidden by Dad's shaving kit which he takes with him on business trips. I pulled the picture carefully out from beneath the leather kit.
It was a picture of Mom before she changed her hair color over the couple of months or so. It was also a picture of Robert. They were in some cheap motel room. He was buck naked and laying atop Mom who was also bare naked. There wasn't too much I could see, but I paled anyway. I could sure as hell guess what must have been happening.
No wonder Dad didn't want Robert to come over for Wednesday dinner. Mom wasn't just a friend of Robert, she was seeing him--fucking him!
But then who took this picture? No, it couldn't have been Dad.
I unzipped Dad's shaving kit, and I discovered he had dozens of Polaroids rubber-banded inside. I wanted to look at them all, but before I could, I saw Dad's car pull up into the driveway.
"Bethany, your father's home. Hurry up with that laundry!"
"I'm coming!" I shouted. "Keep your pants on!"
God, I don't believe I said that.
I packed the shaving kit back up and quickly hid the photo underneath it once again. Then I grabbed the small pile of laundry and hurried downstairs into the laundry room.
Not long after Dad arrived, Robert pulled up into the driveway. He wasn't as old as my Mom. She was forty years old. If he was less than ten years younger than her, I'd be surprised. He couldn't have been thirty yet. As I watched him get out of his car, I vowed there and then that tomorrow I'd look at those pictures for sure. Why did I have to put myself through this? Why the curiosity? I couldn't answer that. But I had to know, didn't I?
"So, Bethany, your birthday's coming up soon," Dad said at the dinner table that night. "Anything special you want?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. I'll have to think about it."
"What are you going to be? Twenty-one? Twenty-two?" Robert teased.
"Stop it, Robert!" Mom said. "Don't rush her. Let her enjoy her eighteenth birthday while she can."
"It's just that she always seemed older than her years," he answered. "She's a very mature young lady."
"Like Mary Deanna said, don't rush her," Dad added gruffly. "She's growing up fast enough as it is." I didn't quite understand the underlying tone in his voice. It was almost as if Dad was jealous.
After dinner on Wednesday night they did what they always did on Wednesday night--sent us to our rooms. My brothers didn't like it, and neither did I. When the noises began, I slipped out to see if Robert had left. There was no sign of Robert downstairs. But, his car was still parked in front. I went down the side hall to see if Robert was sleeping in the guest room. His stuff sat in there, but he wasn't.
Apparently the only person downstairs was me. Dad wasn't downstairs. Mom certainly wasn't downstairs. In fact, from the sounds of the moaning coming out of her bedroom, it was obvious that Mom was up there. As quietly as I could, I crept back upstairs.
Carefully, I tried their bedroom door. Of course, it was locked. In the old days, you might peep through the keyhole, but we had modern doors, so that was out. But there was so much noise going on in the bedroom that I doubt they even realized that I'd tried the door handle. I put my ear up to the door.
"You getting this, Joe?" Robert's voice said. "You getting a good shot of your wife opening up under a big dicked black man?"
Holy shit!
I just barely heard Dad grumble. "Yeah, I got it."
And all this time Mom was moaning like there was no tomorrow.
"You may be Joe's wife, Deanna Benton," I heard Robert announce loudly. "But whose woman are you?"
Then a small mousy voice, Mom said something I couldn't hear.
"Whose woman?" Robert demanded again.
"Yours," Mom replied. "I'm yours, Robert."
"Damn right."