The Red Robe

"Brie?"

I wandered through the living room and into the kitchen.

"Brie!"

She wasn't home. I had specifically said 2:00. I won't have time.

But as I reached the steps to check upstairs, I could hear water running.

I pounded on the door, "Mom! Mom."

I pounded again, "I don't have a lot of time. I have to get to this interview." It was my first chance to work here since I arrived.

"I have one hour and I used twenty minutes to get here."

I heard the water stop, and as I turned to head back downstairs and wait, the door peaked open.

There was mom through a thin line of light at the door, soaking wet. Dripping, water on the floor. "Sorry boo. I forgot."

"Did you get the stuff. Is it in the car?" I asked.

I was peaking through the crack into the bathroom, could see her smiling face as she leaned toward me. But trying to see more, her bare legs, an elbow. Why was I doing that? The door shifted a little, wavering, her soft brown skin narrowing and widening, just blurs. She had a towel loose in her hand.

"Hmmm. But we BOTH need to move it. Be right down." And she turned away, I saw her ass perfectly for just a moment as the door pushed closed with her foot. And through the door she called, "Don't you try moving it yourself."

I turned, closed my eyes. Damn! She was fine.

I trotted down the stairs, and in a beat she was in the kitchen wearing just a little robe, it came down mid thigh. Red silk with a red sash.

"Sorry, I totally lost track of the time. I can help you now."

She had bought some lumber and they had packed it on the roof of our car. There were sheets of plywood and she needed the stuff off her car before she went to work. I agreed to come home and help. In fact I was home this summer to help with some construction projects at the house, as I was between jobs.

She headed for the door and I let my eyes, once again, drift down her back, the red silk falling down around her, tied lightly at her waist and following past the hem of her robe to her long legs.. Her dark black hair, still wet, set just over the collar. There were three words covering her ass.

I smiled as I read 'THIS END UP' in a curly script of white letters, and an arrow pointing down right between her legs ending at the hem.

She looked back at me, saw my eyes on her ass and smiled, "Oh, don't you pay no attention to that."

I blushed, and followed her out into the back yard still eyeing her.

She glanced at me, a smile on her face. "Better get used to it, cause I'm no prude."

Thinking to myself *This End Up* as I watched her pad out to the car.

*************

The agreement was that I could stay with Brie so long as I worked on the house, renovating rooms, fixing stuff, and in general doing whatever other projects she came up with while I was there. I hadn't been to her house in years and really knew no one in town anymore, but I looked a few people up and Brie mentioned that she would introduce me around, get me into the neighborhood.

I had a room right next to hers and settled in quickly. I had very few things with me, most of my stuff was in storage. I had a free summer. My work was construction, so the stuff she wanted me to do was easy in comparison. This would be a really great year.

I hadn't spent much time with my mom, and I can't honestly keep track of where I was through most of my childhood. My dad was Scandinavian with some Irish; and mom - Brie is what she insisted I call her - was African American. They had met in college, whirlwind romance and sometime when I was no more than two, I have no idea, they parted and I ended up staying with my dads parents for a number of years; later with my dad.

I do remember spending summers with Brie when I was six until about ten (the most fun summers of my life). And I kept in contact after that. She was FREE, she told me that herself. She was an author a poet a painter an activist and for her day job she closed mortgages at the local bank.

Her hair was long, straight, black falling down around her shoulders. I was watching her lift the plywood off the roof of the car and, turning herself, holding her one arm up causing the little robe she was wearing to ride up, and to my eye she was hot. How old was she? I had no idea. No idea how old she was when she had me. Dad was at least 45, what was she when they were together - 20? She didn't even look thirty.

The robe rode up and I could see the swell of her ass. She felt it too, and looking back at me called back "Don't you be looking at nothing."

"My eyes are closed Mom."

"Well don't close your eyes either! And its Brie."

That was her way.

By the time the lumber was hauled up into the house, we were both hot and sweaty. Her robe had pulled open at the top forming a deep V all the way down to the sash. If her breasts had been smaller they would have fallen out, but they held nice and tight in the fabric, the silk held taught. I needed to sit down, clear my head.

"Damn. That was work. I didn't think this through. I need another shower."

She fell into a seat before me, her robe was still open, she was wiping herself with her sleeve.

I reached into the fridge and took out a coke. "I got to get going."

"You go little Boo." She leaned in took my hand kissed me on the cheek. She always called me that and up the stairs she ran away from me.

I sat back down a moment sipping my coke.

*************

Brie was not how I remembered her. I didn't remember a woman who moved the way she did, the naturalness of her.

The smell however I absolutely did remember. It was amazing, mesmerizing, safe. I walked into the house, inhaled, closed my eyes and melted. I was home. When she stepped up to me and hugged me to her, held me there, I wanted to cry.

She was happy, I remembered that. She was smart and funny and quick, I did not remember all of that. She was beautiful. I remembered, but I could not stop looking at her. She moved like a butterfly, light and graceful. Her arms so smooth, chocolate brown, her hands so graceful. Her breasts heavy, but perfectly shaped, the way they moved with her, so natural.

Brie was no prude, and I remembered that. She wore so little clothing around the house, that it was hard for me. The reserve I had grown up with, and as the heat rose in this little town I was living in now. The heat was close they called it and I could not have imagined how the smells grew around me, how they filled my lungs as the heat grew closer.

At breakfast Brie came down in just her night shirt. What she slept in - I would imagine - padding through the kitchen, nothing underneath. I could tell, her body all in motion beneath the fabric, no lines, her body was this beautiful world of curves and flesh. I watched for the places where her body pressed to the fabric giving a hint to her bare outlines underneath. Her neck was long, muscular and when she turned her head with such a soft profile, head held high she looked like a goddess. I remembered sitting in this same kitchen ten years earlier. I always knew she was strong.

When she sipped her coffee she closed her eyes and breathed in, each morning. She settled into her chair across from me her wide eyes and smiling said, "What you going to do today Boo?"

At the time it was leveling the floor of the porch and I would explain how I was going to do it. She breathed, "Mmmm, you know an awful lot."

I smiled. She was proud. I felt so small in her presence.

--------

This morning though, I slept in and as I roused looked toward the foot of my bed...

There was mom.

"Brie? What ..."

She looked up, spoke in such a soft voice, "Good morning sleepy head," standing at my closet, the doors open.

"What are you...?"

She was wearing one of my shirts, buttoned down the front. White with a long tail so when you tuck it in it does not come back out. It was large on her, I noticed that, the cuffs hanging unbuttoned over her hands. Her nightshirt was laying on the floor. She had pulled it off and put on one of my shirts.

I realized she had to have been walking around in my room, if even for a moment, naked. She had changed in my room, into one of my shirts!

I woke a little more and also realized I was naked, laying under the lightest of sheets which crossed at my hips, my cock was stiff you could see the contour pressing up, forming this little tent and I rose pulling the sheet up over myself lifting it and holding it away.

"You have the SAME shirts that your father did, you know that? He wore this very thing."

"I think that one is..." I pointed at what she was wearing, "...Dads. He gave me a bunch a few years back."

"Hmmm." She stroked the fabric and put her chin down into her shoulder, "The smell, you know you smell like him too."

She came over and set on the bed, lay her hand on the sheet by my hip.

"He was one I never should have let go of. I didn't know it then."

I was brushing my hair out of my eyes.

"You got his eyes you know that. You've grown. Gotten so big. You know when you was born it was such a scandal! A white man with a black woman, but when you was born you were as white as you are now. Not blonde, not blue eyed. You got your black hair and your brown eyes from me, but that was all. I looked at you and asked, 'Is that mine?' I couldn't believe it. They told me the pigmentation would come in later. That's what they called it, pigmentation. But you know what, it never did."

I was watching her brushing the sheet with her hand, just reaching to the edge of my hip sliding her hands along the fabric there. Her shirt was up around her thighs as she set into the mattress, and I knew she was wearing only that shirt. I eyed her carefully. She kept her legs together, the fabric falling around her legs, and held myself upright wearing nothing, holding the sheet away from my crotch, as she touched my hip.

She kept talking, the words flowing from her and I relaxed, remembering her stories.

"This is like when I used to stay here, you would come in my room wake me up."

"That's right. You always were a late sleeper."

"It's not late."

"In my world it is." She looked at her watch, "I'm going to be late," and rising from the bed, "You made me late!"

"I was sleeping."

"I needed this," and she held up a brush in her hand. "And when I saw those shirts. I had to try it on."

She paused and looked into my eyes putting her head down, "You didn't see nothing did you?"

I shook my head. Closed my eyes, tried to imagine what I might have seen had I...

She bent low and took her nightshirt in her hand and walked out still wearing my shirt.

"Better change in my room. See you tonight."

******************

Every time I looked at mom after that I could see her with my shirt on, the curve of the hem rising at her thighs. The top three buttons undone, the cuffs hanging over her hands. Her fingertips laying on the white sheet next to me.

One day I handed her one of them. "Here, have it."

She took it in her hand squeezed the fabric.

"Wear it any time you want."

And I went back out onto the porch.

***********

We were laughing tonight, everything was so fine. The floor in the porch was done, tiled. I was ready to put in new windows and new doors throughout the house, get rid of the drafts. I came in exhausted and threw myself into a chair at the table Brie set up in the 'new' porch. Brie was sitting across from me.

She fixed a roast, beautiful roast and I was hungry. She set the table so nice, glass dishes and napkins.

"Clean up first."

"Yeah," I rose from the chair.

"Excuse me. Do I look like a yeah?"

"Yes, Ma'am," and I ran up the stairs.

When I came back down I saw she had even set out some wine glasses.

I sat down looked at her, she tilted a bottle of red wine at me. "We're celebrating tonight."

"I drink beer."

"This is a classy place tonight, you'll drink some wine with ME."

She put her chin out and filled my glass. It was nice, she was in charge. She was always in charge around here.

We talked about when I was seven and eight, and nine and ten, the summers at the house. The same one; we were the ones who had changed.

I said it seemed smaller now.

She said, you were the one who was smaller then.

She recounted how she stopped driving for ten whole years because she thought cars were trying to kill her. She didn't even like to be in a car. Felt safer in buses or walking.

The first incident happened while I was at school. Brie was sitting in the living room and remembered something she needed, and was just to the door to get it when WHAM! Explosion!! The whole side of the house fell in. A car had run over the curb and fell right into the front living room.

"If I hadn't got up I'd be dead."

I looked at the wall where the accident occurred.

"You'd never know. They did a good job fixing it."

I remembered coming home that day, the cop cars everywhere, the fire truck on the lawn. How I started crying. Running into her arms. It brought tears to my eyes even now, that feeling of loss, the fear of losing your parent at eight years old. The feeling of her arms around me saying, 'It's ok baby.'

I said, "I thought you were dead when I came home."

"I almost was dead. That close." She held her fingers apart a half inch.

The second incident happened just a few weeks later. She was shook up and taking taxis. She sat in the back seat and was leaning forward to yell at the driver who had just missed a turn when she realized his eyes was closed.

The car lurched out of control and jumped the curb, hit two vehicles and then rolled into the parking lot, and then crash right through the front window of a coffee shop with mom sitting in the back seat crying and yelling.

The taxi driver had a heart attack and lay dead in the front seat. Mom always said the car killed that man.

The third incident was when she sat along the lake, it was set down low, and there was a wall behind the coffee shop. She loved morning coffee, and she liked to sit and sip her coffee and look out at the water when a car flew not two feet over her head and landed and then rolled on the sand of the beach. Several people were running and yelling, the car was smoking, one of the tires was still spinning when a man covered in blood crawled out a broken window on the passenger side.

He was shouting and swearing and kicking up sand, started taking swings at the people coming to help.

"I can't believe it. I still can't believe it." My mom was laughing now wiping away tears.

"Can you imagine. You never lived till you look up and see a car flying over your head like it was a bird."

"I still don't believe it happened."

"I got the pictures. HE was trying to kill himself. What a dumb fuck. Couldn't have done a worse job. But those cars. Son, they were after me. I swear it!!"

"I wouldn't even cross a street for years if there was car coming."

"Cars don't think mom."

"The hell they don't. The hell they don't...People don't think neither. Ten years. I didn't drive and I STILL don't like it. They're all just waiting for me."

Her eyes got big. "Get Brie!! There she is!" And she jumped out of her chair.

I laughed and laughed.

"We had some good times you know that."

"You were such a good boy. My delicate child. You always wanted to crawl in bed with me. I never said no. But you always went back home didn't you. I thought about you all winter, I did."

"I missed you. We went to the zoo. I loved the zoo."

"You did. I remember that." She took a large sip of her wine, "Remember that monkey that swung out of its cage and ran up to you and stole your peanuts."

I looked away, out the window, tried to remember.

"You cried and cried."

I nodded, "Monkeys are what's after me. Remind me not to drive with monkeys."

"Well then you can't drive neither, that's all that's out there."

We laughed. She wiped away the tears, I watched the bead of sweat curl down her neck and stream down between her breasts.

I poured another glass.

And then another. We kept thinking up things that happened. Aunt Jean's cat that fell out the second floor window. I recounted, "It didn't jump, it fell. She was so mad said that I had pushed her out, and you made her go home."

"You was on the first floor. Can't push a cat out the second floor window from the first floor..."

I was laughing again, "We learned cats don't always land on their feet."

"...Now if you were up there. Then. Jean never trusted you after that. She brought that cat everywhere but never to our house. I didn't mind."

"You know what! What I really enjoyed." My mind was drifting now, and Brie's leaned toward me in her chair, all smiles. Wine glass in her hand.

"Remember how we would put the old Fleetwood Mac, uh, Eagles, uh and ....can't remember. All those albums on and dance in the living room."

Brie clapped her hands together, "We did love to dance."

"You were so wonderful!"

"You were terrible. Damn I sure did have a white boy. Is there anything you can do?"

"It was the most fun I'd had. I loved summers here."

We cleaned up and did various things the rest of the evening. I was laying on the sofa, it was dark and mom came down in her thin little nightshirt carrying a big box.

"What's that?"

"The albums. See what I got."

She pulled out several of them and put them on the stereo. "We're going to dance. Lets see if this thing works."

The music started and she began to sway to the music, swinging her arms and singing with the songs. I kept sitting there, watching.

"Come on." She handed me another glass of wine. "Come on," she was twirling around sipping her wine and set it on the stereo.

I got up, started to dance, a little stiff.

She laughed, "Your still terrible!"

I went to sit back down.

"Stop it, have some more. I'm sorry." She took my hands and pulled me to the middle of the room. "Tonight you are the best dancer in the whole world." She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed my cheek. She looked at me close, paused.

The warmth of her was a surprise. I paused, my arms held her around the low of her back, and then I stepped back and we danced!

I loosened up, kept drinking, she grabbed another bottle. The heat of the room had us both puffing and sweating. Mom was soaking that little nightshirt through with sweat and I could see the brown of her skin as the fabric went transparent, clung to her. I could see her tummy perfectly. I could see her navel as the fabric lifted away from her body there, and lower down the curve that was her pussy mound as she moved, could see the fabric darkening there. I could feel myself get an erection.

Her nipples were erect, stiff pointing out and I could see them perfectly as well. She had to have been able to see my erection. I was just wearing pajama bottoms.

And when she turned from me, the most perfect ass! Oh my god! I kept trying to dance behind her, she continued turning toward me. Still no idea what a vision she was. Her skin was wet. And her ass, the fabric clung to her body, and the line of her ass was perfectly visible. In the low light she looked naked wriggling and swaying to the music.

I was feeling so tipsy and free.

"Your dancing better," she was calling to me.

And I came up behind her and wrapped my arms around her lay my hands on her tummy, felt the wet fabric. We danced like this awhile. I was holding myself back away from her, keeping my cock which was now hard away from her, when she jumped back into my arms. I felt my whole length press into her from behind. She froze a moment and stepped forward again, looking back at me, a smirk on her face and then lifting her arms in the air closed her eyes and just swayed in front of me.

"Like what you see do you?"

I said nothing.

She was swaying, "It's alright."