Jennifer
I'll never forget when my husband Jimmy brought Ricky home. It was a cold winter night; I just figured we were "watching" him again.
"Go inside and get your pajamas on. It's late," Jimmy ordered the boy. He waited until Ricky got to the back bedroom before he talked to me.
"Denise got picked up again."
"For drugs?"
"No, on waivers. What do you think? Yes, for drugs." Jimmy was cranky. He never talked to me like that, but his sister had just been busted again.
"What's going to happen?"
"She's going to jail!" Jimmy declared.
"She's going to jail?" I repeated surprised.
"Absolutely, Jen. Violation of probation, possession and driving under the influence with a ten-year-old boy in the car. You remember what that judge said. She's going away for ten years."
"Ten years?" I was stunned.
"That was just the original sentence. Who knows what they'll tack on for the new charges." The conversation stopped because we heard the boy coming down the hall.
"Come on in, hon," I said to the boy. "Are you hungry?"
"A little," the boy stammered.
"Well sit down, and I'll make you a plate."
The child ate so voraciously that I doubted that he had eaten all day. Your heart had to go out to him. His dad was already in jail for dealing, and now his mom was going to be there too.
The boy was so good looking and well mannered I thought I was going to cry. He ate two helpings and fell asleep at the table. Jimmy had to carry him off to bed
I was up all night. I wish I could say I was worried about Ricky, but I was really worried about myself.
I knew he would fall on our shoulders. Jimmy's brother and sister would plead poverty, and Jimmy's mother had a hard enough time taking care of his invalid father.
I was only twenty-six. I was practically a newlywed. What did I know about raising a young boy? I didn't know it at the time, but that boy would turn out to be my saving grace.
Ricky
I remember the night my mom got arrested. We had just come from a "friend" of hers house. I found out later it was her dealer. She had no money, so I can imagine what she had to do to get the drugs.
The cops had the place staked out, so they pulled us over about two blocks away. I was so scared. They arrested her right away. I sat in the back of a cop car and then the station house for what seemed like days.
It was dark by the time Uncle Jim came to pick me up. He took me to where I would soon call home. There in the kitchen was Jen. I was in love with her already.
I had met her a couple years ago when Uncle Jim started to bring her around. She was just about the prettiest woman I've seen in my life. She always had a huge hug and kiss for me too. It didn't hurt that she always dressed very sexy. Tight jeans, heels and a low cut blouse were her usual attire.
Now I was living with her, and I thought myself the luckiest kid in the world. It wasn't that she was so pretty and nice, but now I had my own room, and in the kitchen there was a refrigerator full of food.
At night I had someone to put me to bed, and not the other way around. I had new clothes, not hand-me-downs. On Christmas and my birthday I would actually get gifts. There were no strangers coming to our house at all hours of the night. I finally knew what it was like to have a real home
Jennifer
Ricky was an amazing kid. He was a beautiful boy, and although he wasn't the best student, he never really got in any trouble. He was a tremendous athlete, so that helped him to get friends in his new school. That spring he was playing intramural lacrosse, and he made the travel team that summer.
By the next fall, when he started middle school, he already had a ton of sports friends.
I never had to scold Ricky. His obedience to me was unquestioning. All I had to do was ask with a smile, or a light touch of the hand, and he would do what I asked.
"I think he has a crush on you." My friend Anna said to me not long after he moved in.
"Nah, I'm just his Aunt Jen," I replied.
"Who he has a thing for," she laughed.
I can't remember when he started to call me Mom, but I think it was about the time his real Mom got sentenced on the new charges. By the time her sentence was done, Ricky could be married with his own kids. Ricky was now ours.
It was not a one-way street though. He filled a need in me. I didn't give birth to him, but I was now a mom.
Ricky
I remember the first time I called her Mom. It was actually a slip of the tongue, but after it came out, Jen smiled and started to glow. She really liked it so I continued to call her that. I would do anything to please her. Besides, it was a lot less awkward than calling her Aunt Jen. I didn't want to be different from my friends. It was easier to pretend that she was my Mom.
I did not think of her as my Mom, but she was more than just an Aunt. She was more of a mom to me than my real mom, but I was conflicted.
She made me light headed when this beautiful woman would bend down to hug me, but you can't be attracted to your Mom. Besides I was still very young, and it was still pretty innocent.
Still, my friends would come over and comment on how pretty my Mom was. I didn't know if they came to my house to see Jen or me.
Jennifer
It was about a year or two after Ricky arrived that I found that I was infertile. Jim and I had been having unprotected sex even before we were married. We both wanted kids, and we saw no reason to wait. After a few years, we knew something was wrong.
We both got tested and sure enough I had the problem. The doctors put me on some medicine, but it didn't work for me. I wouldn't be having any babies.
It was then that I found myself becoming even closer to Ricky, and my marital relationship started to sour. There was no animosity between Jimmy and me but I do think he resented my inability to conceive. A general malaise fell over our marriage. That was compounded by the fact that Jimmy's company got a new contract. Jimmy worked as a supervisor for a construction company, and the new contract was to build drugstores for a large chain.
But the stores were rarely in our area. They could be upstate or in a completely different state. Definitely not commuting distance from our house.
So Jimmy started to leave on Sunday night, and not get home again until Friday night. Saturday was the only full day we spent together.
For good or for bad, and at a very early age, Ricky became the man of the house.
Ricky
I was about thirteen or fourteen when Uncle Jim started to leave the house for work. I didn't really think about it at the time. When you are a kid you tend to accept things as they come.
I felt things were different with Jen and me. I knew that I had a lot more responsibility, and also a lot more freedom. Taking care of the pool and the lawn were now my permanent jobs, along with my normal chores.
Our physical relationship changed too. I now got Uncle Jimmy's place on the couch at night while we watched TV. I had formerly been assigned to the easy chair. Mom (Aunt Jen) asked me to move closer to her one cold night, and I never left.
Even when Uncle Jim was home on Saturday nights I would still have the couch, and he would have the easy chair. If he minded, he never said.
I also noticed that Uncle Jim slept on the couch when he was home. They made some excuse about him snoring too loud, but I got the gist that there was another reason.
When Jim wasn't home, I also noticed that she sat closer to me. She was more affectionate. I would have my arms around her when she was cold, or she might have her head in my lap while we watched our shows.
She rarely wore a bra while we watched TV. I would often see her nips sticking through the material of her t-shirt. As I got older, spooning with Mom (Aunt Jen) became more frequent and more troubling.
Her attire was also different during the week as compared to the weekend. She dressed even sexier than before. It was subtle at first, but by the time I graduated high school it became more pronounced.
Cleavage was fashionable at the time, and Mom certainly showed her share. The top three or four buttons on her blouses were never buttoned, and I could always see her bra.
I remember we were out to celebrate my eighteenth birthday, she was on her tiptoes reaching into the back of her SUV, but she was wearing these new leggings that are supposed to look like blue jeans.
They looked like they were painted on, and she had such a tight ass, I could see every curve of her cheeks. I remember thinking that I had never seen anything so hot and sexy in my life.
She would never wear them when Uncle Jim was around. She'd only wear them when she was bending over in front of me.
Jennifer
The years passed and my relationship with Jimmy deteriorated even more. The separation between us was more than just mileage. He didn't even call me when he was away at work.
Jimmy was drinking a lot when he was away, and he continued it while he was at home. I couldn't sleep with him, so I made him sleep on the couch.
On the opposite spectrum Ricky and I got even closer. He was eighteen now, and more of a man every day. It probably wasn't normal or healthy, but I clung more to Ricky as Jimmy drifted away.
By the time Ricky graduated from high school my relationship with Jimmy was over. We didn't sleep together, we didn't have sex, and we hardly talked with each other. On Saturday nights Jimmy would usually go out with his friends.
"Oh, my God. Is that Ricky?" Anna asked me one evening when we were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee. Ricky had come through the door shirtless, and I guess he impressed her.
"Woof. If I wasn't a happily married woman, I would teach him a thing or two about older women."
That summer the central air conditioner went on the fritz. Jimmy didn't care. He was never home, and when he was, he was smashed. Finally, after much nagging, he got me a window unit that Ricky put in my room. It would have to do until the central A/C was fixed. The poor boy had nothing. I suggested that he get the air mattress and put it on my floor. He could sleep in Mom's room.
Ricky
The summer I turned eighteen was one of the hottest summers on record, and we were without air conditioning. Jimmy was home even less than usual, and when he was around, he was drunk. There were only two havens for the heat; the pool and Mom's bedroom. Mom and I were wearing less and less, and the heat was not just from the temperature.
