Cat Got My Tongue

"I would trim that one rather than take it down."

"Okay, that sounds good."

"I'll have the estimate emailed to you by tomorrow morning."

"Great." He paused. "Come have a beer with me."

"I need to--"

"Please?"

David tightened his grip on the clipboard. He nodded and followed Noah's father into the house.

Mitch brought him a bottle and held his out until David touched his to it.

"To love," Mitch said.

Fuck that, David thought.

They sat in the living room. The house was quiet.

"Let me tell you a story," Mitch said.

David started to get up. "Look, I really can't talk about--"

"Stay, please." Mitch implored. "I want to talk about me."

David paused, then sat back. The beer was cold and good. One beer, he thought. Then I slip out.

"Rose cheated on me. Two years ago, at her work."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

Mitch shrugged. "I figured maybe Noah had told Shelly and Shelly had told--. You know they are having sex, right?"

David nodded. "I'd be suspicious if they weren't. She promises they are always safe. And I can see that Naoh respects her. I'm okay with them."

"One of the women who work in the office called me," Mitch said, "and told me Rose was having an affair. She was doing it in empty houses the agency was showing. She gave me a list of houses and I drove around until I saw her car. I walked in, and there they were on the carpet, pounding away. I let them see me, then I walked out and drove home. My mind was red. If I had been carrying a gun, they would have been dead. Know what I mean?"

"I do," David said carefully.

"She came home eventually. Crying, clothes all messed up. It was a mistake, she said, she didn't love him. She only loved me and the kids. I waited until she was cried out and asked her if she wanted a divorce. She started to sob. She only ever loved me. Et cetera."

"I had time while I was waiting for her to come home," Mitch continued, "sitting here -- right here, as a matter of fact -- to cool down and think about it. I didn't want to be married to someone I could not trust. I told her that what we had was dead. She lost it altogether then. I remember thinking that she was either sincere, in which case she was deluded, or she was the best actress I had ever seen. I told her that if she wanted to stay in this house and be a mother to her children and -- this was the important part to her -- ensure that they would never find out what she had done, that things were going to change."

David found that he had finished his beer. He put the bottle down but made no motion to leave.

"I hadn't the slightest clue what I was doing. It was all bluff. I waited until the next day, having kicked her out of our bedroom, to give her my new rules. I figured that in the light of day she would probably get her cheating face back on, deny and rationalize all her actions. In that case, we were done. But she still was distraught. She wanted her family to stay together. She wanted me back. She wanted to tell me why. I told her to shut up. It didn't matter why."

David leaned forward. "But how do you get past seeing another cock inside your wife?"

"Exactly," Mitch said. "That is a big fucking mental hurdle to overcome. I had stayed up most of the night thinking, and here is what I proposed. I gave her the list of tasks to do. I told her that if she did not do them all immediately, she was out. If she objected to any of them, she was out. She agreed, and I gave her the list. One, cut all contact with the guy. Two, quit her job. Three, tell his wife every detail. Four, write down a chronology of when, where, and how they met and exactly what they had done. Five, give me all access to her online accounts."

"Wow."

"I know. I was 50/50 that she would read the list and say no and that would actually make it easier for me. But she did every one without a word of protest. I made her sleep in the guest room for two months. We went to counseling. We talked it out every night. I watched her closely for any sign of rebellion, and I asked her every day if we still had a deal. After two months, I let her come back into my bed. And I started my program."

Mitch jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. "You should have seen the story she wrote down. Vivid details. I almost heaved a couple of times reading it. But it guided me in my reclamation project. I took the confession and sat her down to go over a few items.... Are you okay with this?"

"I am if you are," said David.

"Good. I asked: did he put his cock in your ass? She says no, so beginning that night, I fuck her in the ass. We had never done that before. I had put a fingertip up once or twice as she was riding me, but man. I could tell that hole was virgin."

David felt his color rise. He looked away, out the window.

"Now I take it whenever I want it. Other things, too. He had never been dominating with her. So I started tying her up and spanking her. Hard."

"You don't have to--" David protested.

Mitch smiled. "She fucking loved it. Still does. Likes to be tied to the bed, blindfolded, with a ball gag, and pounded as hard as I can physically pound. I have fucked her on the balcony out front where anyone could be watching. Sometimes when I am really putting it to her, I yell WHO'S PUSSY IS THIS? and she tells me it is mine, all mine."

David needed another beer. The room was warm. The next time he ran into Rose was going to be interesting.

Mitch licked his lips and fetched them each another bottle. "Moral of the story is. The relationship we had died the day I saw her on the carpet. I built a new one based on my controlling her cunt, using it for my own pleasure and making sure she knows I don't give a fuck if she ever finds pleasure again. That was rule six. Am I cruel and hateful? Ask Rose that when she is convulsing and squirting out of her mind. And the toys I have collected --"

"That's okay," David said hoarsely. "Maybe another time."

**********

"We're like the Scooby Gang but we solve sex problems instead of ghost problems," Tommy said.

"We haven't solved shit yet," said Shelly. "Sorry, Gran."

Their grandmother paused her slicing of the banana bread, serrated knife hovering over the brown mass. "For what, dear?"

"For cursing."

She sighed, put down the knife, and stood up. "If we are going to talk frankly about human sexual response --" She held up a hand to stop Tommy, who had opened his mouth. "-- and yes, Tommy, I know that would make a good band name. I went to see them at the Rat back in the day and I slam danced in the mosh pit."

She crossed her front room to a bookcase and brought a large book back to the table. The cover read Visions of Woodstock.

"The girls have looked through this before. They never made the connection."

She opened the book to a large color photograph of a young blonde girl dancing in the middle of a circle of other rather scruffy young people seated haphazardly about. Most of them were gazing at the girl with amusement or admiration or amazement.

The young girl was naked, her long blonde hair over but showing her breasts as it flowed with her movement. Her bush was thick and equally as blonde. She was lithe and muscular and in a rapture of happiness. She was fucking beautiful.

And she was vaguely familiar. Then she was totally familiar.

"Holy shit!" cried Shelly.

"Gran," Erin gasped. "That's --"

"That's right, dear. So don't be afraid to speak frankly in front of me. As you can see, I have been there and I have done that."

"So many questions," whispered Noah quietly, as though he had not meant to say that out loud.

She looked at the boys, who actually colored with embarrassment. "Since you have now seen my twat, you can call me Lucille, or Lucy. Your choice. And don't even consider taking a photo of this. I was fifteen years old. You do not want that on your phone."

She returned the book to its place and resumed slicing the banana bread. "Now then, where were we?"

The teens were unusually quiet and hesitant. Finally, Tommy said, "Jesus, I need a cigarette. And I don't even smoke."

They all laughed and hooted at that and they were back in their slot.

Noah spoke first. "I asked my dad have a little chat with Mr. London. About how to reclaim a...." He glanced at Lucille, hesitated, then kept on. "...straying cunt."

Lucille beamed at him. "Well done. Did you listen in?"

"Yeah, I did. Boy, some the details I could have done without." He took his phone out and played the conversation for them."

Erin and Shelly watched each other as Noah's father retold the gory details.

"Are you imagining Mother--?"

"Yeah."

"Oh my god."

Tommy had his mouth full, so they had to decode his next sentence using a lot of context when he said, "It's simple, really. We just have to do a factory reset and reload the user settings."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Erin said.

"I said--"

"I know what you said. Now swallow and tell us what that means exactly."

"Factory reset," Tommy said. "When your router memory gets fragmented or the firmware is corrupted. You take a paper clip and push it in the little hole in the back. This erases all the bad things and returns your router to the original pristine conditions it left the factory with."

Erin was puzzled. "So if we stick a paperclip in our mother's hole, she grows a new hymen?"

"That would be awesome but probably not feasible," Tommy said. "I think there is another way to do it."

**********

Cat

The woman was Vietnamese, I think, which made me question if she was qualified to do this Brazilian thing I had agreed to. Not that I had a choice. Erin was holding my left hand and Shelly was holding my right. It looked like moral support, but I did not doubt that if I had tried to refuse they would have held me down on the table and it would have happened anyway.

The table was covered with paper. It reminded me of our exam room tables, and that reminded me of -- and I shut up and did what I was told.

I had a T-shirt on. That was it. Everything else was exposed. It seemed demeaning -- then I remembered those other times I had been exposed this way and I laid down and I shut up again.

The woman rubbed warm oil on my privates. It felt wonderful. I imagined David rubbing oil on me like this -- damn it! I keep reminding myself of my idiot behavior.

All because my hormones had gone off track for few weeks. Maybe my brain chemistry was all over the chart. Maybe I had a low-grade infection. Maybe I had an undiagnosed brain tumor. Something had pushed my boundaries down. All of a sudden I went from faithful wife to slut in heat rutting for a mediocre cock.

I had a panicked horrible thought. Maybe I wasn't the loyal wife and mother I had always thought. Maybe I was really a cheating whore who had been pretending. Maybe that whore would come out again and again whenever my body let its guard down.

I fought to sit up, but the woman slapped something really hot against my mons and I squealed. I laid back down.

"Breathe, mother," Erin commanded.

"But it burns -- OW!" The woman had ripped the hot mass away, taking quite a bit of hair with it.

Shelly leaned over me and smiled. "Of course it does. We still hate you and want you to suffer. But remember -- lots of people do this voluntarily"

**********

"Lucy?"

"Yes?"

"You going to pass that joint or not?"

Lucille looked over at her lover. William was the principal of the middle school where Erin and Shelly had been students not too long before. That was how she had met him. She had often been called upon to pick up the twins after school and had eventually met all their teachers that way. And William, who had seemed to her officious and cool.

Then one night over cookies, Erin told her that Mr. Delahunt had asked if her grandfather was ever going to pick the girls up. Lucille smiled to herself.

"Tell him no, dear."

William turned out to be very uncool. Or maybe he was cool but in the good sense. And out of his school jacket and tie he had proved to be a good dancer, a good conversationalist, and a great lover.

As good as her late husband? she wondered after their first time. Did it matter?

No. You lived life as it came and treated your friends and lovers with respect and enjoyed yourself.

"Sorry." She reached over and gave him the joint, then let her hand descend onto his hardening cock.

"I took 100 milligrams," he said after he had inhaled, held it for a ten count, and then cheekily blew the smoke in her direction.

She picked up the tube of lubricant from the bedside table and held it so he could see.

"I'm greasing her up now."

He laughed and climbed on top of her.

**********

Cat scanned the storefronts in the little strip mall as they parked. Erin was driving. Neither twin had told their mother where they were going.

"Subs?" Cat asked, reading the sign of the end shop. She wiggled her butt in the seat. Her panties felt strange against her bare pussy. Three days and it still made her feel 11 years old. It was unexpectedly erotic.

Erin nodded toward the stores. Cat followed.

"Tattoos? You're getting a tattoo?"

"No, mother. You are getting a tattoo."

"But--"

Erin made a sshht sound. "You don't have a but."

Shelly snorted.

"Okay," Cat said with resignation. "Are you getting ones as well?"

Erin looked at her cooly. "We are a little young for this kind of tattoo."

They led her inside and sat her in the waiting room.

"It looks sketchy," Cat whispered.

"The better the tattoo parlor, the sketchier it looks," replied Shelly, not at all quietly. "You come for the artist, not the ambiance."

An older woman appeared and introduced herself as Ann. She was covered in ink. Arms, neck, calves. Cat did not want to think about the unmentionable other places the woman might be decorated.

Erin handed the woman a sheet of paper. Ann read it, then turned and pointed to a poster which had listed different types of script. Some blocky, some flowing, some bulbous. Erin and Shelly whispered for a moment and selected a flowing script. Ann nodded and beckoned them all to follow.

"Pants off?" asked Cat incredulously. "Exactly where do you think this tattoo is going?"

"We don't think, mother. We know exactly where it is going."

"Yes. Don't worry. We came to Ann because she is the best at this."

Ann nodded at Cat, who thought the woman was making come hither eyes at her. Cat quickly looked away and removed her pants.

Again she found herself on a table that brought back shameful memories. She was so distracted by those that when Ann wiped some liquid on her shaven mons, she flinched.

"Hold still," cautioned Ann. "There's no eraser on this thing."

Cat looked up at her daughters, who were apparently overcome with delightful anticipation. Cat lay back in surrender.

Ann switched on her pen and began to work. It hurt. The vibrations and the sharp stabs of the needle made Cat's vagina warm. She could feel blood rushing to her labia. She closed her eyes to concentrate, to block out the pain. But Ann's left hand was resting on Cat's clitoral hood, and the deep rumbling harmonics of the motor in the pen she held with her right went right through both to Cat's pussy.

Ann worked away determinedly for a long while. A long and pleasurable while.

Jesus, I'm going to come! Cat thought frantically, and before the thought was fully through her head the spasms hit. She moaned, then tried to turn the moan of pleasure into a moan of pain.

It was the longest orgasm of her life. It peaked and ebbed and peaked again as the pen kept vibrating away. Ann paused to wipe the area frequently, which just reset the sensation and kept it moving.

Finally, Ann turned off the pen. Panting, Cat opened her eyes and looked at her.

Ann shrugged. "It happens."

Cat looked at her daughters. They had bought the pain act, but Ann knew what her ministrations could bring.

"Take a look," Ann said, and held up a round mirror so Cat could see the result.

Though she was looking at the work in reverse, when she recognized it she began to sob.

**********

Cat

The girls said to wait until the swelling and redness around the tattoo subsided and then let it happen naturally. I knew the hot water handle on the bathroom upstairs often came loose and until the right size screwdriver could be found to tighten it whoever wanted a shower would go use the guest bath.

So I did. I timed it to be finished when David was coming back into after breakfast. I opened the bathroom door and stepped into the guest room, moist and naked.

He came into the room preoccupied, not noticing me at first, then he looked up. He saw me clutching a towel and must have figured out why I was there in an instant. In the next instant his eyes ran down my body. I had a horrible urge to cover my nakedness. My husband, well, my technically ex-husband, who has seen this body for 20 years and now I have the urge to cover up? I chided myself. I did not conceal a thing. I stood straight and unashamed as he took in my breasts, my belly -- I saw his eyes widen as he ran them over my hairless mound. He licked his lips. I thought that this would be it, that he would grab me and throw me on the bed.

But he his eyes narrowed as he saw the tattoo. He stared at it for a second, then he made a choking noise. He turned and ran out of the room, slamming the door so hard the pictures on the wall rattled.

**********

"Hi, Da--" Shelly's head swiveled as she watched her father sprint out the door. She frowned, then turned back to her granola. He was probably late for an estimate or something. This became less likely when she saw her mother run down the stairs. Naked.

"Where is he?" Cat shouted. She headed for the door, but Shelly interposed herself and stopped her.

"What the hell?"

"He saw me."

Shelly looked out the kitchen window and saw her father's truck speeding away.

"You're sure he saw you?'

"Yes, just like this." Her mother dropped the towel and stood exposed.

"Did he see the tattoo?"

"Yes, of course. When he saw it he became so angry he ran out."

Shelly made a disbelieving face. "What the fuck?"

**********

"You have got to be shitting me," Erin said.

"What?" said Gran. She turned the burner off and put the lid on her pan.

"Dad saw the tattoo and freaked out. He ran out of the house and disappeared in his truck. Shelly says he isn't answering his phone and the tracker app is not showing his location."

"Put her on speaker, dear."

"-- so mother was there, starkers, and Dad took a good long look, apparently. He liked what he saw right up until he saw the tattoo. Then he bolted. When he passed me on his way out the door he looked super pissed. P I S S pissed."

"That doesn't make sense."

"I know."

"We have to find him," Gran said. "Call the boys."

**********

They spread out, each one going to check on places they thought their father might flee to. He wasn't in the local sports bar. He wasn't down by the river. He wasn't at the ball park.

Lucille had been tasked to check the shop, but he wasn't there either. None of the crew had seen him.

She was walking away when it hit her. She walked back to the office and asked, "Where is Truck 1 right now?"

**********

She found David in Truck 1, parked two blocks down from the shop on a side street. She made the long climb into the passenger seat.

"How'd you find me?" David asked.

Lucille pointed at the GPS tracker attached to the windshield and David laughed without any humor.

"It's over and done, Lucille."

"What happened?"

"I saw... I saw her naked. She was using my shower and... I saw her. All of her." He turned his head away from her. "She shaved her... and she had his goddamn name tattooed...." He made a vague motion toward his crotch.