NOT NORMAL
I would have preferred it hadn't, but the sun rose the next morning. When I woke up, I realized I was still in my stupid Eighties aerobics costume. My next thought was of the flask I'd confiscated from the boys at the party. As soon as I tried to move in my bed, I felt the hangover.
I started to cry.
Terrible flashes from the night before lit up in my memory, and I cried harder. How much worse could I have possibly failed?
I had failed to stay sober, and if that was all, I could have dealt with it. But worse, I had failed horribly
as a mother.
The roller coaster had flown off the rails and gone up in flames. All hope for a happy, even halfway normal relationship with Tracie was now definitely gone. Without that, what did I have to live for?
I couldn't get out of my head the sensations of eating my stepdaughter's pussy - my nose hissing angrily in her pubic hair; the heat on my cheeks from her black nylon thighs; my tongue pushing into her swollen, slick labia; the tight, wet grip of her canal on my fingers; her groans; the sloppy wet noises I made between her legs; her hand crushing a cupcake; the whimpers and taste of her coming in my mouth.
And worst of all, the memories aroused me.
All that Sunday, I simply hid in my room - in part, to recover from my hangover; but mostly, because I was too ashamed to show my face.
That night, even after spending the whole day in bed, I was weary enough to fall back asleep, wanting the escape from my thoughts. But there was no escape. I had an intense dream. I dreamt that I was in bed with Tracie, both of us completely nude, having excited, uninhibited sex. I was laying on her, face-to-face, humping her like a man would. My daughter was clinging to me, her arms and legs wrapped around me, pulling me to her. I was thrilled by the touch of her smooth, warm skin. I saw so clearly her eyes looking into mine - we were both loving it. In the dream, I felt as happy as I could be - no guilt at all. We both said how much we loved each other as I made intense love to my beautiful girl. I woke from the dream having an orgasm.
To tell you how confused I was, I laid in bed after coming from the dream, crying and wondering if I needed to go to a psychiatrist and get on some pills. But at the same time, I fingered myself and easily brought on a second climax.
The days that followed were grim. Tracie and I avoided each other entirely. No dinners together. I don't even know what my stepdaughter ate those days. I ate nothing. I couldn't. Not so much as hello. Not even any eye contact.
There was no longer any pretending that we could ever go back to being a normal family again, and that broke my heart. I loved Tracie just like any mother loves her child - she was my whole life. But what had happened between us over the previous year had now gone much too far to come back from.
I had destroyed everything. I couldn't blame anyone else for what I did at the Halloween party. And I couldn't just blame Tracie's blackmail for what I had done with her after the party. There was no one I could talk to about it. I had lost my daughter. I knew I was ruined - maybe insane.
I went through my days trying to appear like a normal person. But I was like a robot, following my programming even though I was without hope. I got up in the mornings, drove to work, did my job (to some degree), drove home, went to bed - and tried not to think.
I yearned to start drinking again, to deaden my mind and let everything go to hell - it was just as well if it did. The only thing keeping me from alcohol was fear: booze had led me to do what I did at the Halloween party. Only the devil could imagine what I might do if I got drunk again.
To add to my stress, things at work were suddenly not going well. There had been a big production problem, and we were in danger of losing several of our important clients. But I was at my least effective.
My boss was scared. He called me into his office to ask me why I had been so distracted and "out of it" when I should have been doubling my efforts.
All I could do was apologize for some "personal stuff" and promise to "get it together."
Of course, it was upsetting to get scolded by my boss, but work strife seemed so trivial compared to what was going on in my head, my heart, and my home.
Having nowhere else to go, I drove toward that broken home after work through a cold November rain. I stopped at the grocery store, partly as a way to delay returning to the house. Maybe I could still put together a basic meal, maybe eat some of it, even if the rest of my life had fallen apart.
In the produce section, I saw a nice-looking woman who appeared to be in her thirties. Alongside her, a little girl about eight years old was skipping and happily talking to her mom. It was cute how the girl was trying to help her mother shop. Not many years before, that had been Tracie and me.
Life had been so much simpler back then. Things had actually made some sense: I was married, mother to a darling young girl - I thought I had life pretty much figured out.
Now, as I stood there in the grocery store, I had to grab onto the edge of a fruit display to steady myself. I closed my eyes, swallowing back on emotion. I could practically feel little Tracie standing next to me, only as tall as my elbow, pulling my sleeve to ask for some candy.
How had the years flown by so fast? How had things gotten so screwed up?
At the grocery store checkout, I was surprised that the cashier was Emma Johnson, Tracie's friend and teammate.
"Hi, Ms. Gasparo," she said with a big smile.
I tried to act normal. "Oh, hi, Emma. I didn't know you worked here."
"Just started," she said. She dragged my items one by one across the beeping price scanner.
Emma gave me a curious glance. There was an awkward pause as I remembered she had been at the Halloween party.
She said, "Are you doing okay?"
I stretched my lips into not quite a smile. "Yeah..." I said, embarrassed.
"Can I tell you something?" she said, weighing my bananas on the checkout scale.
"Okay."
Emma leaned closer and said, "That was awesome what you did at the party. We all hate Raymond. We've been telling Tracie for years to forget about him."
I almost started crying. "Well, it wasn't my proudest moment. But thanks."
She said, "You're like our hero. He so deserved it. I hope you don't mind, but I told my mom, and she said 'Good for her.' She said, as a mom, she would probably do the same thing."
"Well... Thanks, I guess. Tracie's pretty mad at me."
"Don't worry," Emma said. "She's okay. She doesn't want to admit it, but you did her a favor. She's been alright at school and practice. A little down, maybe, but she's tough."
"I guess she is," I said. "I hope so."
"And she really loves you."
I looked up and Emma's eyes met mine. She nodded and said, "She does."
