Gail shields her eyes from the hot Alabama summer sun, remaining calm but sometimes giving furtive glances over at her son and his friend moving all his worldly possessions in neat, cardboard boxes. They heft two over each shoulder, using the leverage from their legs to hoist the weight — both athletes and in the prime of their lives. Her son, Matthew, is embarking to University of Alabama on a tennis scholarship, his best and perhaps athletically inferior friend Scott moving into the guest house out back, filling the void. But there shouldn't be a void to fill — and besides, nobody on earth could do it. She would be lying if she said she wouldn't miss him, not even a single bit, even though she would try like hell to convince anybody otherwise; even though Michael is her son, she can't hold on to him forever, can't rely on him for her emotional shortcomings, and she knows that anybody within a half mile could catch her crack at any glimmer of emotional distress.
Even under her gardening hat, the sun coats her hair and shoulders with a sickening warmth. Pale and redheaded — with a few splotches of grey — she tries to avoid direct exposure as much as possible. Irish skin, her father would always say, makes you tough as clay. She always resisted the thought of herself as hard as clay, but oftentimes she had to act it as a child. Without a mom, three older brothers hovering over her, she learned quickly to hold on to whatever you can, or else somebody's going to take it from you. Her dad was the easy part — it was the rest of the world that shook her.
Matthew walks over, his blue trainer shirt stained dark with new sweat. "You're never going to get rid of me," he smiles.
Scott runs up behind Matthew, drumming his back furiously. "I'm gonna make you go."
"Watch it," Gail says, probably with a fervor she didn't intend, "you're still month to month with me."
Scott holds up his arms, backing away slowly in mock fear. Gail forces a smile to make up for her harshness, but it feels strained and fake anyway. "I'm going inside. Don't hurt yourself," she yells back at them.
Inside the house she puts up the shades, takes off her gardening hat, and levers her shoes off. She throws herself on the couch in the dark living room, overtired and worked, burnt beyond belief. It's hard to think of her Matthew as an independent man — strong willed and boastful, able bodied, carrying his weight not as a burden but as a sign of confidence. He will always be that tiny boy, though, dark haired and fair complected, shy, simple but highly intelligent. It's a miracle he grew into the athlete he became today, given Gail's emphasis on academics and musical study — Gail herself an accomplished cellist in the Alabama Philharmonic and not one to throw a ball; it was most likely her late husband Rick who molded Matthew. Every bit of free time available — after homework, chores, and dinner — he had him in the backyard with two mitts, calling out pitches that Matthew threw with increasing acumen and strength. Gail can't face the image, so she blacks it out of her mind. It is for Rick that Gail supports Matthew in everything he accomplishes.
She must have fallen asleep because she wakes up to Matthew standing over her, shaking her shoulder. "Mom, I've got to go."
It takes a moment for her to register. Her son's face, darkened by the sun from the window behind him, only registers as he speaks. She gets up and meets him and Scott at the end of the gravel driveway. From his new Buick, Michael kisses his mother. "I'm only a couple of miles away," he says. She knows he will be back. After all, she wouldn't be alone — she had Scott, that muscle-headed oaf, more of a walking physique than a person.
After waving goodbye from the front lawn, Gail and Scott continue to look down the street as Michael's car passes out of sight. Suddenly, Gail is entombed by two massive arms, her head pressed against a chest more like a concrete wall than flesh; it's Scott hugging from behind.
"It'll be alright, Miss C," he says, chuckling as if it were a secret.
Gail can only remain stiff, unable to give into this rare show of intimacy; it's not as if the contact is unwanted or abhorrent, but it is unexpected, surprising and rare. She lets herself give into the enveloping of his arms — both slabs of muscle squeezing but intimate at the same time. Something tells her to stop it. She starts to wrench free, but Scott lets go.
She reels around and puts a hand on her forehead; she is blushing. "As I recall, you still have stuff to move in. I'm not helping you, so you better hurry. I still need to go over the lease agreement with you later." Gail continues to berate herself for the way she talks to younger people. Michael always says that she sounds like an old grandma, even though she's two years shy of forty.
Scott stands there with his hand on his hips, smiling. His dark hair is wet as if just out of a shower, his shirt tight against bulging, well toned muscles. He picks up his leg and pulls it behind him, stretching as if for a run.
"Take it easy, I got it. I'm going to batting practice here in a little bit, but I'll find the time." His smile widens, two rows of ivory behind full, elegant lips. Something in the grin prevents Gail from believing him fully. Scott has a way of sarcasm that is so vibrant that it comes across as sincerity all over again.
"Oh, I'll believe it this time," she says and turns toward the house.
It happens when she is alone, wandering in and out of thoughts both old and new, or ones hidden in the back like a letter unopened; she feels a heat rising up her feet and into her mouth, a familiar sensation unfelt for some time — even before her divorce from Rick. With Matthew away, Gail fears that her culminating horniness will take her over, prevent her from practicing, prevent her from finally socializing and getting out of the house. She still has her body — a tall, leggy frame, a butt little but full, boobs not impressive but still perky. She stands naked and looks into the mirror at her body in profile: tall legs, a little curvy around the hips, but still adequate in all the right places. Considering that since the divorce — which finalized five years ago — she hasn't done any regimental exercise, unless going to the grocery store counts, she feels confident and sexier than she has in a long time. She pinches her nipples, which releases a tingle up her spine. Her sexual prime is going to begin; alone for the first time, she will find it one way or another.
Or is she alone?
It was about time to face the fact that she looks at Scott, a man living feet away in a guest house, but also her son's best friend, as alluring a man can get; he is tall with fat, hard muscles on his arms, his chest heaving forward like some feral beast on the hunt; his face, although not a quality normally significant to Gail, is trimmed as if from stone: a cut jaw, smooth skin, eyebrows arched and smooth. Gail has done everything to keep this attraction at bay, especially around Michael; besides, she always thought, she shouldn't be meddling into her son's life, she could potentially ruin everything. But attraction is impossible to quench, no matter what the situation. She remembers exactly when she saw him as a man for the first time, when she first was caught up in this physical lust: it was Scott's eighteenth birthday, and he came over to pick Matthew up for some party. Scott smiled and, with his usual manic humor, invited Gail to join them. She barely replied, coldly muttering something underneath her breath, putting up stone wall as she had learned to do all of her life. It's usually the ones that can scale it who make her physically perspired.
She draws a bath, confident and feeling free for the first time in a long time; she never takes the time to look at her body in its true form, and the results were better than expected. She feels wet, so she leans gently against the bed, sucks her teeth, and begins to rub her clitoris, slowly. As her mind races with thoughts of secret places and uncharted situations of physical lust, a warmth rises from her inner thigh into the hidden mounds of her breasts. This isn't a new sensation, but one she hasn't felt in a long time. Too long.
Gail is in the living room, practicing her cello; the Philharmonic will be featuring her in Beethoven's 2nd Cello Sonata. She has never had an opportunity like this — her new form continues to take shape in her solitude. Only after three days alone, Gail certainly misses Matthew, will call out his name by mistake, but those moments of whimsy are fleeting in the grand scheme of things.
But oddly enough, no sign of Scott.
She never sees him coming in or out of the house, his sedan parked on the right side of the house as it usually is. Maybe baseball is taking up all of his time. Maybe the jock's life really is as hard and arduous as they say. Other than an exchange of rent once a month, Scott has no excuse to see her, to talk to her, to even look at her. Somehow she feels emptier knowing this, but she knows she shouldn't.
After about ten times attempting the crescendo of the second movement, she gets up, backs her cello and bow away, and finds herself walking out the front door. A goodwill checkup isn't out of bounds, is it? Or is it overstepping? Who makes these rules anyway?
She skirts his car on the right side of the house and into the sun of the backyard to the adobe studio in which Scott lives. Gail knocks four times, her heart in her throat while reaching for the fifth. He opens.
"Miss C!" He drinks an energy drink out of a long can. His body is bare except for a tight pair of briefs; Gail can't help but notice the calf muscles almost ripping the fabric apart. Most noticeable, though, is his cock, which is packed to the left side, leaving an unnatural looking mound.
Gail stands, staring off into a reality in which she kneels down, presses against that delicious bulge, her hands caressing those bulbous, chiseled slabs of meat on his chest. Perhaps she will rip off the underwear in one swipe, taste and handle his cock.
