This story has been written in several parts. While you hopefully can enjoy this portion on its own, you may want to read the previous portions in order to get the flow of the whole thing. The bottom line is, this is the story of a young daughter who has come of age, a wife who has been left alone for too long and a husband who begins to clue in to the fact that he has spent way too much time over the past several years working...Enjoy!
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"So," said Lynette between bites of her Chinese food "what were you saying about my boyfriend, Mom?" a knowing grin on her young face.
My wife Carrie looked back and laughed. "Oh, nothing much. Terri was asking me if you had one and I told her you had at least one!"
"You can say that again!" Lynette's friend Alison chimed in, eliciting a swat across the arm from my daughter. "What? You know you do!" she laughed.
"Well...so what?" Lynette rejoined. "I'm allowed to have a little fun aren't I? The more the merrier!" she smirked.
"Yeah, right! Not even Santa Clause is that merry!" her friend snickered.
"Shut Up!" Lynette laughed. "You should talk. You're only seeing Ryan because of the size of his wiener!" she countered, drawing a gasp and a punch from a wide eyed Alison.
"You little bitch!" Alison yelped, her jaw thrust forward, eyes flying around the table at my wife and her friend Terri before returning to glare at my daughter. "You...you're bad! You're not supposed to tell anyone I said that."
Terri cut in. "So...that's what it is huh? He's cute, dark and well-formed?" she teased.
Alison looked back at Terri a little dismayed. She'd only just met this woman a couple of hours ago. How dare she make that kind of comment? But then she saw the warm, friendly expression in Terri's deep brown eyes and her sudden anger drained from her like sand through a funnel. "Who told you he was cute?" she replied, evading the main question.
Terri smiled back easily. "Your friend's mom clued me in." she offered, her eyes flicking over to Carrie, then back again as she took a sip from her drink.
"Mrs. Connell!" Alison chided in mock horror.
"What?" Carrie laughed, shrugging her shoulders and throwing up her hands in front of her. "All I said was he was tall, dark, big and handsome!" she continued, defending herself.
"And then I asked how big and if he was big everywhere...and now we know!" Terri snickered her eyes alight.
Alison's jaw hung open and a blush slowly crept up her face as she looked back and forth among the other women. She stammered a few times before she finally blurted "You guys are terrible. I'm not talking about this!" With that, she formed a determined line with her pretty mouth, her jaw set, arms crossed over her pert, young breasts. She tossed her long auburn hair backwards, her steel grey eyes brimming with determination.
"Oh c'mon, Allie," Lynette teased, "you told me you couldn't even get your hand around it! You said..." as Alison whirled around and tried to clamp her hands over my daughter's mouth, causing Lynette to laugh and grab her friend's hands in an attempt to ward the other girl off. "You said you could put both hands together one in front of the other and he still stuck..." More fighting and laughter. "...out two inches!" Lynette howled with her friend practically climbing on her now as bemused shoppers started to stare from other nearby tables.
"SHUT UP!" Alison squealed, finally getting her left hand on her friend's mouth, which was pointless anyway since my daughter was now laughing so hard she couldn't continue. Girls.
Terri and my wife looked on in amusement, shaking their heads and smiling. Terri looked over at Carrie and raised her eyebrows conspiratorially, smiling an evil little smile. Alison plopped back down in her chair with a thud, grabbed her drink and thrust the straw into her mouth, pouting as she did. Lynette leaned back in her own chair and continued to giggle, her arms wrapped around her, hugging herself as she shook silently.
"You're mean!" Alison shot at her, her eyes squinting, shooting darts.
"Oh c'mon Allie, I'm just teasing. You know I love you!" Lynette soothed, smiling at her friend.
"I don't care. You're mean!" Alison sniffed, looking away with a huff.
"She's faking!" Lynette explained, looking back at Terri and my wife. "She's pretending to be upset, but she loves talking about it, don't you Allie?" she grinned, leaning toward her friend and patting her knee. Alison remained resolute.
"Oh well, Alison, don't worry about it!" Terri offered. "Besides, Lynette's just jealous. She needs two or three guys just to make up your one!" she added, drawing a loud "Hey!" from my daughter.
Alison looked up quickly at Terri, a gleam of warm appreciation and self-assurance in her eyes. Terri responded with her sparkling smile.
The rest of the afternoon flew by. I had returned home from my deluded pursuit of par golf, nursing my wounds after a few beers with the boys. Manwhile my wife Carrie and my daughter Lynette were dropping off their "gal-pals" at their respective homes and making their way back home.
As they drove, Lynette broke the small silence. "That was fun, Mom!" she said, looking over at her mother as her right hand picked absently at a piece of thread on the leg of her jeans.
"Yeah, it was!" Carrie replied. "We don't go out often enough anymore." my wife added, looking over at her daughter.
"I know Mom. I'm sorry. I'm so busy with school and gymnastics and my friends and boyfriends, I never seem to have any time anymore." Lynette replied sadly.
Carrie sat in silence for a moment. That pretty much summed up the story of her life over these past few years. For a long while, taking care of Lynette filled her days and nights. But then as time passed, I got busier at work, Lynette grew up and started going out more on her own and suddenly my wife found herself entirely alone in a big, empty house.
She had her friends and her own work during the day, of course. The evenings were lonely though, since I traveled a lot. She missed me and she missed Lynette. To ward off the "lonelies", she'd spent a lot of time at the gym, working her body, trying to look younger again. Not that she'd ever looked old. She'd just felt that she needed to firm a few things up, so she could feel good about herself. All those nights though, working out and looking at the many beautiful men, women, young girls and guys had started to do something to her. She'd found herself becoming more...charged somehow. More aware of curves and bulges, rippling muscles and taut rear-ends. It seemed like she was in a near constant state of arousal these past months, and up until the past few weeks, there was no one to relieve it, except herself of course, which she seemed to be doing a lot lately she mused. It was almost like when she was back in high school and college, except that back then, like her daughter, she had also had a never ending stream of guys, and if she was telling the whole truth, a few sexy girls willing to help her quench her fire. And she'd quenched theirs, again and again, over and over. Carrie suddenly came back to the present, realizing her daydream was beginning to make her a bit damp between her legs.
Lynette was studying her mother. Carrie finally looked over at her daughter and smiled sheepishly. "What were you thinking about, Mom?" Lynette plied.
"Oh, just thinking about high school." Carrie replied. "I guess being with you two today reminded me of what it was like back then." she continued.
"What was it like?" Lynette questioned, turning toward her mom, pulling her left leg up under her on the seat.
"Well, probably not much different than it is now, I guess. But maybe a lot different too -- I don't know." my wife responded. "It doesn't seem all that long ago, really."
"Did you have lots of boyfriends?" Lynette asked, brushing a stray hair out of her eyes.
Carrie sat quietly for a minute, trying to think how best to reply. "Yes -- quite a few, I guess. I don't know if that was a good thing though." she said.
"How so?" her daughter prodded.
"Well...it was lots of fun...Lots of fun." she chuckled, drawing a smile from Lynette. "But a lot of them were real jerks and you've really got to be careful, you know. I could have gotten really messed up. I had you a lot younger than I expected to." Lynette's face fell a little. Carrie glanced over and saw that look and quickly added "But you know what? That was the best thing that ever happened to me! But I don't recommend having children too early. It's tough, you know?"
Lynette studied her mother for a minute. "Yeah, I guess so." she nodded. Another brief silence evolved. Then Lynette asked "Did you...did you have sex a lot before you met Dad?"
Carrie stared at her daughter for a second before turning quickly to look at a car stopping quickly in front of her. She stepped on the brakes firmly. It gave her a reason to pause to think about the question. Staring ahead she answered "I...I probably enjoyed myself too much back then. I don't want to sound like a prude or imply that I was a slut either. I just..."
"So what? All that means is that you liked sex, Mom!" Lynette finished for her. "It's OK. I do too. A lot." she added.
Carrie turned to gaze at her daughter, who sat there, a sexy little grin on her pretty face. She at once felt a little queasy while at the same time a little shiver went up her back. She broke the mutual eye-lock with her daughter and looked forward again, saying nothing.
Lynette paused, sizing up the situation. "I'm sorry about earlier today when we were talking about Alison's boyfriend. I was just teasing her, you know? I didn't mean to shock you or anything if I did. I hope that didn't bother you too much." she blurted.
"I...I wouldn't say it bothered me. Maybe surprised me a bit." Carrie returned.