It was several hours later that I resurfaced from apparently having dozed off, to see Mum's face in the crack of the door, smiling at me.
"Come on Chris, dinner's ready," she said, "I bet you could do with something to eat after all that exercise."
"Yeah, thanks Mum," I answered, not registering her comment in my dozy state, "Be with you in a few minutes."
I stood up and stretched, then pulled on my t-shirt and began clambering into my jeans before reality struck me.
"What the fuck did she say?" I asked myself, "Exercise -- exertion -- whatever; was she taking the piss because I was asleep or what?"
I just didn't know but then it struck me that if she was actually referring to physical exercise then she must have heard us together. Perhaps she'd interrupted her work to come indoors at some time -- but then again, she'd surely have berated us both if she'd known what we were doing. Not knowing the truth, but virtually praying that it was merely Mum's choice of words, I let the matter rest and headed out, to find the whole family in the lounge.
"Hello Chris, had a nice kip?" asked Dad sociably, "Fancy a drink before dinner? A nice chilled lager, eh?"
"Sure Dad thanks and yeah, I think I did," I answered -- and then Mum popped into the kitchen and reappeared with two glasses of wine, one of which she handed to Becky.
"Thanks Mum," she said as she took her glass and settled herself by the window overlooking the garden, "Mmmm, smells nice."
"What does, the wine or the dinner?" said Mum with a laugh.
"Everything does!" said Becky happily, an answer that had Mum cocking her head.
"What are you so happy about?" she asked cheerfully but Becky just shrugged her shoulders.
Dad's laugh from the kitchen as he fetched our lager was equally as light and easy and I began to relax. Perhaps Mum's comment had been facetious, having seen me asleep, so I left it at that.
Dinner duly came and went and then we all settled to enjoy a postprandial cup of coffee with light chatter prevailing until finally Becky stood up, obviously intending to take her empty cup to the kitchen to wash but Mum lifted her hand to stop her.
"Stay here darling," she said gently, "Your Dad and I have something to say."
I felt butterflies surging all through my body as my worst fears began to surface. Mum must definitely have heard us and was now about to read the riot act to us. My dinner suddenly wanted to leave my body and as I glanced at Becky, it was obvious that she felt the same degree of trepidation -- but Mum calmed us both down.
"Come on kids, smile," she said as she stood up, "We're not going to upset things -- it's bad enough out there without us all being at loggerheads."
"I've asked your mother to talk to you both," said Dad, his voice gaining our sudden attention, "Words from me do tend to come over a bit hard so your mother can say it better than I can."
"Ok, you two; now listen carefully," said Mum as she regained our attention, "This is an awkward subject to talk about so I'm sure that your Dad will help me if necessary."
Our attention was now riveted to her and for a few moments silence ruled, before she spoke again.
"Sex," she said firmly, "We're going to talk about sex. Ok?"
Becky and I both nodded our heads as we realised that we'd been found out...
"Come on kids, keep smiling!" said Dad brightly, "It'll all be ok -- don't get so worried. Anyway, you might be surprised..."
"Right," said Mum as she stood there looking firmly in command, "There's a problem in this house that needs sorting out, isn't there?"
I don't think she expected an answer except from herself...
"Your Dad and I can go to our room and have as much sex as we want, can't we?" she said, again, not expecting answers, "But you two can't -- well, not in normal circumstances. So we're proposing that for the duration of this emergency -- or possibly for longer -- we relax all rules about sex and just get on with it!"
Dad laughed briefly then looked embarrassed and shut up while Mum continued.
"It so happened that I came indoors briefly this afternoon and what I heard did several things to me," she said, "Firstly I felt shock and horror, then I felt sorry for you both as I realised the truth and then I also felt extremely horny!"
"Yep," said Dad, "You two are both sexually active as you've told us, but now that you can't go out and meet your mates you're bound to get frustrated. All that youthful energy locked up with nowhere to go. And as your mother said, another of the results of hearing you was that we then enjoyed a lovely heated romp, so thank you both."
"So once we were relaxed again your Dad and I had a nice chat and we both agreed to be able to let everyone enjoy sex -- not just us two," added Mum, "So from now onwards there are no rules!"
"What?" shrieked Becky, "So you didn't tell us and we had to do everything as quietly as possible?"
"We hadn't made that decision then," said Dad, "But it was when Mum heard you two having a good time that we both agreed."
"So you don't mind if Becky and I ummm... have sex?" I asked at last and Dad, after pulling a bit of a face, stuck his thumbs up.
"No problem from now," he answered as he tried to find the right words, "To be honest, there's two ways for us to survive this lockdown. One is for us to keep everything under a very tight rein and the other is to relax the rules."
"We can't relax the rules, can we?" asked Becky nervously and obviously thinking about the virus but Dad held his hand up.
"No, not the rules about the bug -- I mean the usual rules about sex," he said "If we keep things tight then we'll all end up getting grumpy and nasty whereas if we relax them then we'll all feel much better, won't we?"
There was a brief silence as we let the idea sink in then Becky spoke again.
"Mum?" she began, "Does that really mean that we can all have sex -- you know, not just Chris and me but more than that?"
"What's good for one generation has to be good for another," added Mum, "So yes -- why did you ask that?"