Three Sons (Part 2)
Kathryn M. Burke
As Jenny prepared dinner for her three sons, she made a futile attempt to pretend that her encounter with James hadn't really happened.
As her two other sons, Peter and Daniel came home, things returned to the chaotic state that was all too customary for a household with three rambunctious young men. Usually, Jenny enjoyed watching and listening to her boys yakking away over dinner—on sports, on the funny or annoying things that had happened at their workplaces, or whatever—while contributing little to the conversation herself. Today she was unusually quiet, although she did exchange significant glances with James from time to time.
Peter didn't notice his mother's change of temperament, but Daniel did. He stared at her repeatedly over dinner. At one point he even asked, "Are you okay, Mom?"
"I'm fine, dear," she said shortly.
Daniel continued to give her a keen glance. "You seem a little flush, Mom. Do you have a fever?" He was sitting close enough to her that he was able to reach out and place a hand on her forehead.
Jenny brushed the hand away peremptorily. "I'm
fine,
okay? I'm just a little overheated. That's what slaving over a hot stove during summertime will do to a woman."
This was just one of numerous veiled criticisms that Jenny was in the habit of making as a pointed suggestion that her boys should help more around the house. Daniel somehow sensed that there was more to it than that, but he didn't pursue the matter.
After dinner, James was keen on having a serious talk with Peter, so he barged into Peter's bedroom and told him to sit on the bed while he settled down in an easy chair. Peter was the runt of the family—only five foot six—but quite powerful and stocky. He could at times seem a little slow mentally, and he was pretty shy and nervous around strangers. James peered closely at him as Peter gazed back with an air of apprehension. He'd always been intimidated by his older brother, even though he was only a year younger than James.
"What's up, bro?" Peter said.
James remained silent for a time, not sure how to broach the delicate subject. Then he just decided to come out with it.
"I slept with Mom," he said.
Peter gave his brother a baffled look.
You took a nap with our mother?
James rolled his eyes. Could his brother really be so dense? Slowly and precisely he said: "I had sex with Mom, guy."
Peter's reaction was far more extreme than even James expected. He almost did a somersault on the bed, writhing around as if someone had stabbed him in the stomach.
"Man, you can't do that!" he cried. "She's our
mom,
for God's sake!"
"I know that, you dummy," James replied unkindly.
"But—but why? You're not supposed to do that! It's against the law, I think."
"Yeah, that may be. But I'm sure you've noticed that Mom hasn't been feeling so well after Dad left. She's been moping around as if the world's coming to an end."
"Yeah, I know." And Peter himself put on a glum face.
"So I was just trying to make her feel better." Suddenly James got real intense, coming over to his brother and glaring down at him. "Listen, guy, you don't really know much about girls, but I know that women of Mom's age need regular sex to feel right. If they don't get it, they start feeling crabby or irritable or depressed. I'm pretty sure that's what Mom's going through. Also, she turned forty a few weeks ago."
"I know that. So what's the big deal?"
"Maybe she's starting to feel old."
"She's not old! She looks—well, she looks fabulous!"
"Sure, she does. But that milestone—turning forty—is a big deal for some people. Especially since Mom isn't going out on dates and doesn't have anyone to tell her how fabulous she is."
"We can do more of that."
"Yes, we can—and we can show it too. That's what I just did. And that's what you're going to do."
"Me?"
Peter squawked. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," James said almost menacingly, "that you're going to get into bed with her next."
"I don't know if I can. She's our
mom!"
"You don't have to keep saying that. Just think of her as a beautiful and desirable woman who wants your attention."
James paused abruptly and frowned at his brother. "You know how to make a girl happy?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Do you know"—again he spoke slowly and precisely—"how to make a girl come?"
Peter blushed crimson. "Kind of."
"Kind of? Have you actually done it with a girl? Have you ever had sex with a girl at all?"
"Yeah."
"You have?" James said, surprised. "I've never seen you go out with anyone."
Peter was now looking at his hands. "It was—it was at the hardware store."
"You had sex with a girl in the hardware store?"
"No, no! Not
in
the hardware store. You see, there's this woman, Mrs. Stevenson—she's a regular customer at our store. So she comes in one day and wants a lot of mulch—and she wants it delivered. This was a few months ago, back in June. She asked my boss if I could deliver it: she seemed pretty insistent on having me do the job. So he said yes, and I went over there on a Saturday morning to drop off the mulch."
"You don't work on Saturdays."
"I know that—but I didn't mind. What else do I have to do? Anyway, when I got there she said she'd like me to spread the stuff around various places in her front and back yard where she had flowers and things. So I said sure. It was a pretty hot day, and I was just wearing a T-shirt and denim shorts. I could see that she was watching me pretty carefully while I was working—I guess to make sure I was doing it right.
"Well, after it was over she said, 'Wanna drink to cool off?' That sounded pretty good to me, so we went into the kitchen and she poured out some fruit punch. It was really nice and cool and sweet—but again, she just watched me drink it. The way she was looking at me was a little strange."
"Kind of—predatory, would you say?" James said, knowing where this story was heading.
"I guess you could say that. Then she said something that really floored me.
"'Your clothes are all dirty. Take them off and let me wash them.'
"I just sat theree at her kitchen table, gawking up at her. My clothes really weren't all that dirty, although I guess I'd sweated a bit handling all those big bags of mulch. I said, 'Ma'am, that's okay'—but she just started tugging at my T-shirt to get it off.
"'I'm going to do some laundry anyway, so I might as well do your things along with mine. Let me do your shorts too—and your underwear.'
"'My underwear!' I cried out. 'You don't really need to do that.'
"She just glared at me, so I figured there was no way around it. But I wasn't going to strip right in front of her! I guess she knew that, so with a kind of annoyed sigh she said, 'I'll get you a robe to wear while your things are in the wash.'
"She went to her bedroom—she lives in this ranch-style house, so everything's on one floor—and came back with a thin robe. She almost threw it at me. I put it on, and then turned my back to her while I peeled off my shorts and underwear. Then I handed them to her.
"She put the things in the wash, along with the clothes she was wearing. So now she was also wearing just a robe—almost see-through, if you ask me. And when she sat down at the kitchen table, the robe seemed to come apart, because she hadn't tied the sash very well. I could see—well, you can guess what I could see."
"Was she good-looking?" James asked.
"Yeah, sure. Not a beauty, like Mom, but not bad at all."
"How old is she?"
"Oh, I figure she's a little older than Mom."
"All right, then what happened?"
"I think she noticed me staring at her chest, where the robe was coming apart. So with this little glint in her eye she said, 'You want a better look?'
"And she stood up and took the robe off and let it fall to the floor. She was naked, man!"
"Would you say she's nicely built?"
"You bet! She has these big boobs that were still pretty high on her chest—no sagging, you know? She wasn't exactly thin, but she had real nice curves around her hips and butt. In fact, she did a little twirl so I could get a look at her front and back.