It was the very day before Kathy arrived that Bob called again. He wanted to return from out of nowhere and pick up exactly where things had left off.
“I think the only thing you can do,” he tried to influence me with that cold and indisputable logic of his, “is face up to this. I want to confront Kathy with it and prove to you that she is a lying little wench.”
“No,” I said coldly, flatly, angered also that he had called me collect from California, and angry at myself for having accepted the call.
“Denise, you must be reasonable,” he continued. “You owe it to yourself, and you certainly owe it to me after I spent a whole summer trying to help you. Well… perhaps I am being a little selfish and evasive. The truth is, Denise, that I just got back from the Far East. I've missed you. I've thought about you more than I should. I want to see you again… to love you…”
I quietly hung up the phone. It was the only thing I could do. If I had listened, I would have given in. If I had talked back or tried to argue, he would know that he could keep me in conversation. And if he did that, he probably knew that I would eventually agree to what he wanted.
And then I thought about tomorrow. I could hang up the phone easily enough, but what would I do if he came knocking on the door tomorrow or the next day… or next week? Kathy would be arriving the very next morning at 9:30, and I was determined not to let Bob intrude on our lives this summer.
Quickly, I looked through my telephone pad and found Mai's number. Mai was my first husband, and Kathy, of course, lived with him and his wife. I was so intent on what I was doing, it never occurred to me to be nervous or hesitant about calling Mai, although I had not talked to him in years. His wife answered the phone and I immediately told her, “This is Denise Bryant. I'd like to speak to Kathy's father, please.”
I tried not to sound too desperate. I mentioned nothing about Bob or any fears of Kathy's misbehavior in any way. Instead, I told him that I would like to take Kathy to the beach to spend the summer, and I asked if he could possibly send me a little extra to take care of her expenses. Mai was the nicest I had ever known him to be. He told me that he thought it was a wonderful idea and would send along an extra check with Kathy that would be enough to cover both our expenses.
I packed that night and put everything in the car. When I picked up Kathy at the airport, we were on our way to Florida.
Our reunion was highly strained at first. Neither of us said very much of anything. After we turned off the beltway and were 40 miles down the turnpike, I told Kathy I had packed some lunch for us and that there was a thermos of cold tea in the back.
“How's Bob?” she asked me out of the blue when she finished eating and poured both of us a paper cup of iced tea.
“I haven't seen him since you left last September,” I answered quite honestly, welcoming the opportunity to clear the air, “and I can't say that I'm sorry.”
“Was it about me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well… about what I said when I left on the plane that day.” She obviously wanted to talk about it too. “Was that why you broke up?”
“That certainly played a part in it,” I admitted, lighting a cigarette and finding it difficult to concentrate on my driving. “He denied it, of course.”
“Mother… I have a terrible confession to make,” she stated with what seemed genuine feeling, “I lied to you about Bob. He never did it to me. Never.”
“Who am I to believe, Kathy?” I asked her point blank, moving to the right lane so I could drive slower. “I was in love with Bob. And I love you. That's a pretty terrible decision to make.”
“The decision you made means you love me more.” Kathy analyzed with amazing perspective, “If you had loved him more, you wouldn't have kicked him out.”
“Why did you do it, Kathy?” I demanded to know, not about to tell her the details of Bob's departure, “Why did you deliberately tell me you had been having sex relations all summer with Bob?”
“I'm very sorry, mother,” she replied, suddenly wanting to avoid discussion. “It was very mean and very nasty of me. I do things like that sometimes and it bugs Father and Mother Nancy so much. He says I'm a very moody and unpredictable person. I do have problems sometimes. I can't talk with them about it. They wouldn't understand. You're different, Mother. You're young and alive, and you've got boyfriend problems too… you were so wrapped up with Bob last summer… I couldn't ever talk to you. Not like I wanted to.”
“Kathy… Kathy, you poor darling,” I said with a feeling of very deep and sincere affection, putting my arm around her and pulling her close, almost crying, “Kathy… I know why you told me that horrible thing now. You were jealous. Every summer before, we've had so much time alone together. I was never involved with one man… never someone at the house with us all the time.”
“Oh, Mother… Mother I've wanted to talk, to you so much like a close friend… like a girlfriend who's hip and been around and can take care of herself. Will you let me? Will you be my friend, and my Mother too. Oh, Mother, we can have such a blast at the beach together. I can see us walking along together in bikinis and we won't know whether the boys are whistling at you or me. We can double on dates, and…”
I think I must have been the happiest and most relaxed I had been in years. Instead of stopping for the night, we drove straight on through and got to the beach early the next morning. Kathy had slept in the car, of course, and I was very tired. Yet I was so invigorated. I felt so wonderful. We had not talked too much more about the real personal things that were concerning Kathy. But the barriers had been pushed aside. The prospects for a happy time looked very good indeed.
We found a beautiful new motel with private beach and pool, and set up housekeeping for the summer. We had one huge room with sofa beds and a kitchenette, beautifully furnished and air-conditioned. We went grocery shopping that afternoon, and I enjoyed every minute of even the most routine things like that with Kathy. It was wonderful to see how she had matured, knew how to shop and to plan meals. Of course, Kathy had matured in other ways.
She would be fifteen in a week. Her body is fuller and more developed. We wore very close to the same size clothes, and I discovered quite to my surprise that my bras fit her perfectly. We tried on bikinis together the next day at one of the beach stores, and we took exactly the same size. We bought three between us and had a lot of fun arguing over who would wear which and on what day.
Back at the motel, we modeled them together and just had a wonderful time. I marveled at my daughter's striking beauty, her long hair, the darling and lovable face, and her perfect figure. I suppose that in the back of my mind, the many things that had been said before and the many strange ideas implanted in my neurotic head, did trouble me some. But at the time, I felt that my feeling toward Kathy was the truly wonderful emotion that it should be. The problems of the previous summer were forgotten and it was to be a fun time together. And, of course, there would be those serious mother-daughter discussions that she had asked for.
The problem that first confronted me however, was men. We both seemed to be the center of attraction, and the men who were attracted by us were usually too young for me and too old for Kathy. I was not concerned for myself, of course. I adored the attention from younger men that my daughter's presence helped stimulate. The problem was that I was concerned about my 15-year-old daughter running around with men from 20 to 30, and about my own lack of privacy to carry on an affair.
The idea of double-dating had sounded fine when she first mentioned it, but I could hardly “swing” together in the same room with my own daughter and her date.
Sam and Colby were our two favorites of the summer. Sam was 27 and in his last year of medicine, a sandy haired darling from a pretty wealthy family in Massachusetts. His buddy Colby was 29, a good-looking blond who was in the process of getting a divorce and was waiting out a three month's residency requirement in Florida.
As things would happen, Sam attached himself to me, and Colby was absolutely mad about Kathy. I had gone along with her lie about being 18, but I felt decidedly uncomfortable about the situation. To be sure, Colby acted a lot younger, and both he and Sam had plenty of interests besides sex. Yet when two men on the loose meet two girls in bikinis at the beach, things are bound to happen if nature takes its course.
Sam and I would go out dancing and drinking quite frequently, while Colby and Kathy said they were going to a movie or a walk or over to the amusement park. It was on the second night that we split up like this that Sam took me to the motel where he and Cindy shared an apartment.
It was then that I realized for the first time what a relatively inexperienced young man he was.
“What's the matter, darling? Too much to drink?” I asked him as we lay in bed naked and he could not get-an erection.
“No… it's…” he sputtered frustratedly, then blurted, “Hell, I'm just nervous, Denise, that's all. I… I'm not much of a cock hound like… like a lot of guys. This is the first summer I've had off in years. I study all the damn time… flunk a course or two and go to summer school I think… well, Dad would disown me if I didn't become a doctor. But I don't do much of anything but study.”
I was terribly hot. I wanted him to make love with me. His body was so pleasant and nice and young. I began to kiss his chest and his nipples, sucking on them like they were a woman's. I licked his stomach and worked the tip of my tongue in his navel, and then slid it over his belly until I was kissing his testicles and around the base of his organ. I experienced a decided feeling of accomplishment when I could feel it stiffening and rising, and I trailed my tongue up the side and then enveloped it with my lips and went down.
“Denise… Denise, honey… oh hell, honey,” he became wildly enraptured, running his fingers in my hair and moving his hips, “I… I knew you'd do that. I… I don't mean anything bad by it. I just knew… you'd been married and been around a lot. I knew you'd do that. Hell… I beat off twice last night after we were out dancing… and I thought about you doing that.”
“Do you want me to finish you this way?” I stopped long enough to ask, feeling like I was giving lessons or hustling again.
“Would you?” he asked incredibly, “Oh… oh, Denise. Quick! Quick! Do it again… I'm coming!”
I went right back down on him and I realized for the first time, I think, what Cindy was saying about receiving enjoyment from oral sex without being stimulated yourself. The feel and taste of his young penis exploding, the texture of his flesh and the warm flood of his vital liquid gave me a beautiful clean thrill I had not noticed before.
I stayed with him long enough for me to work him up again and do a repeat performance. I wanted to stay with him all night, but I couldn't.
Sam was not the only man I had sex with that summer. As usual, the offbeat element seemed drawn to me like a magnet. The man who owned the bar we usually went to in the daytime was married to a shrew of a jealous old bitch. They were both Italian and in their fifties. He flirted with me every chance he could.
One morning when I was drinking a beer there Tony asked me if I'd like to go out in his cabin cruiser with him for a while. His wife had gone to Tampa for the day, he explained. I welcomed the opportunity because I thought it would be nice to have sex with a more mature and experienced man for a change. It turned out that his main interest was in masochism.
Tony had me tie him to the bed and beat his buttocks with a long cane until he could hardly stand it, Otherwise, he was impotent. The big mistake I made in going out with Tony, however, was to let him know that I was interested in, or would at least participate in, offbeat sex. A couple of weekends later, he introduced me to these two gamblers from New York, who insisted that I go into Miami with them that night.
I must have wanted to go, because I was not forced. I only like to pretend I just can't help myself. But these men were really quite persuasive as well as being very sexy and good-looking. So, I told Kathy and Sam and Colby that I had a date with an old friend I had run into. Steve and Greg were in their forties, both dark men of Italian or Greek descent. They had an air-conditioned Cadillac limousine complete with a chauffeur. During the long drive to Miami, I sat in between them, we had a couple of drinks, and one thing led to another. I went down on both of them, and they enjoyed it very much. While I did it to Steve, Greg would finger me and feel my bottom and thighs. When I did it to Greg, Steve would insert his fingers at both places and call me names in Greek.
I felt like I was right back home in the swing of things. I was with my kind of people again, not with college kids or impotent old men. I asked where we were going and they both smiled at each other and told me it would be a new experience… maybe.
They took me to a private club first and introduced me to everyone as “The Suckstress.” This was always followed by delighted looks from the men and both frowns and smiles from the women. Steve and Greg gave me some chips to play the tables for a while, and I was having a wonderful time, when an attendant came over and said that Steve wanted to see me upstairs.
I was ushered into one of the most elegant offices I had ever seen. Steve and Greg were seated on a big leather couch and a gray haired man was behind a kidney-shaped desk. He was introduced as “Mr. Salikas.”
I was pretty much unflappable when it came to sex, but I did do a double take at the girl who was sitting on top of the desk. She was Cuban, they explained, a Cuban refugee whom “Mr. Salikas” had adopted. She couldn't have been more than 11 or 12 years old, a very beautiful young thing with a pretty shape and long black hair.
She was totally naked, and the gray haired man played with various parts of her body as she giggled and muttered words in Spanish. “Mr. Salikas” looked from me to the girl, then back to the girl. The deal was that I was to teach the girl Lesbian love. When I refused, Steve got up and came over toward me like he was going to use some kind of force. But “Mr. Salikas” stopped him and told him to get rid of me immediately, complaining that he wanted a younger girl anyway.
I was sent back to my motel in a taxi.
It was after midnight when I got back. Kathy was out, and I found myself very restless and concerned. I realized that what had started out to be a very wonderful summer of getting to know my daughter had developed into pretty much her going her way while I went mine. I think that a great deal of my sexual desire had been the result of my trying to escape reality and the real fear that haunted me-was Kathy having sex relations with Colby?
As I sat there nursing a scotch and water, I realized for the first time what a bizarre situation this had actually become. Here we were, a 15-year-old girl and her 34-year-old mother keeping company with two men. And Colby was not even divorced yet. My 15-year-old daughter was dating a married man twice her age! How could I have let it happen?
I began to wonder what Sam and Colby really thought of us. Would they go back to Massachusetts to tell all their buddies how they spent the summer “screwing this good-looking broad and her kid daughter”?
And why should I delude myself with the idea that Colby was not having relations with Kathy? They were alone almost every night. There was the car for them to do it in. There was our room at the motel. Why else would a 29-year-old man continue dating a 15-year-old girl… even if he did think she was 18?
Eighteen! Of course. That even made it plainer. And it made me feel a little bit better about what they might think of us. Funny, that I should be as concerned over that as my daughter's virginity. It was then that I determined to stay up until Kathy arrived so that we could have that talk before the summer was over.
I had nearly gone off to sleep sitting up in a chair when I heard her coming in at 4:15 in the morning. She looked so lovely as she walked over to give me a kiss. Her face was radiant and the lack of any make-up pointed up her natural beauty as she knelt there beneath the lamp and looked up at me.
“I've been proposed to, Mother,” she stated with a tone of pride in her voice, then danced across the floor and tossed her purse on the bed. “How did you make out? Did you get a proposal too? Did you have a good time with your old friend?”
“Proposed to?” I questioned, ignoring her queries as I sat up straight and took a sip from my watered down scotch with no more ice in it. “How can you be proposed to by a married man?”
“Oh, he'll be unmarried next month,” she told me with the assurance of gullible youth, “and we can have a honeymoon in Europe and live in a big house up on Massachusetts Bay. Oh, Mother, think how everyone would talk about me back at school… Kathy Bryant married a rich man from Massachusetts and she's having a honeymoon in Europe and…”
“Have you told him you are fifteen years old?” I demanded, standing up and yelling at her, my face contorting angrily as I raved on at her. “Have you told him? Does he know that I could call the police and have him arrested for staying out all night with a minor child and doing… doing things that are called statutory rape in a court of law?”
“Mother…?” Kathy said questioningly, looking at me with an absolutely genuine expression of deep hurt. “You don't think that I did anything that…”
“Oh, Kathy!” I stormed at her, lighting a cigarette, “I'm not dumb. I'm not a stupid woman. Why would a 29-year-old married man be going around with you all summer? Why was Chillie, that delinquent drop-out goon last summer, after you all the time? I don't think you've been holding hands on the beach until four o'clock in the morning, Kathy?”
“Why would Colby date me all summer long?” she came back at me in tears, her arms outstretched, “Mother, this is why I wanted to talk to you. I know… I know why Colby sticks with me. I want to think that he likes me or loves me or really wants to get married. I want to think that. But I know the real reason he keeps going with me is because he thinks, every night, that the next night is going to be the night he can do it to me!
Mother! I'm still a virgin! You may not believe it and nobody else may believe it. But I know that I'm still a virgin! Oh… sure. I talk up a good screw. That's what they say at school. I can talk like a tramp and people think I'm doing everything with every guy I date. I don't care! I know I'm not!”
“Kathy…” I tried to stop her, wanting to talk about it more rationally, wanting to listen and believe her, “Let's…”
“Let me finish first… please,” she requested, kneeling on the floor and looking up at me.
“Mother… I have had boys make me so turned on I could taste them. Oh, I've wanted to get laid in the worst kind of way. When Colby had me over at their place tonight alone, I was fighting… I was fighting the most I ever had. He's a lover, Mother… a real lover. He had his finger… in me! I've let guys at home do that before, I let Chillie do it last summer… but Colby knows how to do it so you just feel so crazy and jazzy you'll do anything!
“But I didn't do it! Mother, I want to be a virgin until I get married… Mother? You… you don't believe I'm a virgin…”
“Kathy… Kathy, darling,” I tried to quiet her, feeling like an absolute heel, reaching down and drawing her close to me. “I think I've been a terrible…”
“No!” she screamed, pulling away from me and standing up, taking off her clothes hurriedly. “You won't believe what I saw. You have to believe me now. Here… you're a woman. Feel! Here… feel!”
Kathy lay sprawled across the bed naked with her legs apart. She spread the lips of her vulva and repeated her request so very urgently. Something seemed to click in my mind about bathing her as a baby, but then I remembered what Cindy had told me about her mother, and I was briefly aware of the idea that I might be just torturing myself unduly, trying to imagine all kinds of terrible things that were not even involved.
“Kathy, honey,” I told her with a nervous and very insecure laugh. “I'm… not even sure I could tell. How… would I know…?”
“You should know? You're a woman,” she said, very convinced, “Colby says he can tell by putting his finger way up there. Here…”
I did it. I tried to throw all my fears aside. I sat right down on the bed beside her and I did it. I don't know whether I could really feel the hymen or not, but it didn't take any medical knowledge to convince me how wrong I'd been. It was impossible to get two fingers inside her very far at all. And my index finger went in very tightly and seemed to be obstructed by something as I tried to push it in its full length.
It surprised me that she was still so lubricated, but then I assumed that she and Colby had been kissing and stimulating each other out in the car right up until the time she had come in.
“Mother… oh… what am I supposed to do?” she asked me as I withdrew my finger. “How can you keep holding out? There must be something…”
“Will you forgive me, darling?” I interrupted, almost breaking into tears as I embraced her very closely, pushing the hair back from her eyes and pressing my lips to hers briefly. “Will you forgive me for being such a fool, having so many doubts, not trusting you… my only daughter whom I love so dearly?”
“Of course, I will,” Kathy said at once, putting her arm around me, “1 know part of it's my fault because I'm such a tease and I like to turn people on. Everybody thinks I'm giving out like everything, but I'm not. I go right up to a point and then I turn off because I have to. But how do you keep on doing that? Two girls in my class are pregnant already because they went one step farther.”
“Maybe you shouldn't let the boys go so far,” I advised, finding myself admiring her nakedness, but uncertain of my emotions. “Maybe you should go only so far as a kiss or two and stop then, before you get so excited.”
“I tried that, and I went without a date for eight weeks one time,” she told me, standing up to admire herself in the mirror. “The nicey-nice boys, the ones I'm not really wild about anyway because they're too goody and not any fun, they won't date me now anyway. Big deal. No great loss for me, I can tell you that. So that leaves only the guys who are going to try to get in your pants no matter what. The only trick is to keep them interested and be able to say no when the thing gets there… keep your legs so tight together they can't get it in.”
“You've gone that far?”
“Oh, Mother!” she said exasperatedly, plopping on the bed again, “I thought you were going to talk to me, and understand, and try to help me. Please don't be a stupid parent. Be my friend.”
“Well… I'll try, darling,” I attempted to assure her, becoming strangely curious and setting on the bed beside her, “Just… how often do you get into one of these situations where you… where your date has his penis out and tries to… enter you?”
“Oh… I dunno,” she shrugged, propping up on an elbow to look at me as if she felt genuinely glad she was able to have this talk. “With Colby it's been every night nearly. Back home, it's once or twice a week.”
“Have you ever… touched the boy there?” I asked hesitantly, not quite sure why I was asking, ”… ever played with it?”
“Yes…” she answered, looking away, “I've jerked off several guys, Colby too. I know that's one way to stop them… and keep them interested too.”
“Have you ever… done anything else?”
“What do you mean? I've let them play with my breasts and kiss them. Oh, gosh, I've done that since I was eleven or twelve.”
“That's all?”
“Oh, Mother, you're a riot!” Kathy suddenly broke out into laughter. “Now, I dig what you're getting at. No, I've never played 69, but I've come pretty close to it. That's dirty, isn't it?”
“Yes,” I answered very quickly and positively.
“Haven't you ever done it?”
“Well… when I was married to your father…”
“No, I don't mean that,” she shook her head and demanded a truthful answer. “Mother, I know you've been having sex with Sam nearly every night. I've even seen your douche bag hanging over there in their bathroom, so don't tell me you haven't. I want to know… have you ever gone down on him?”
I stood up and turned away, walking over to put some ice in my glass and pour in some Scotch right on the rocks. This had gone way too far. This wasn't the way a mother and daughter talked to each other. There should be an image, and I had failed.
“Mother? Are you going to answer me?”
“Yes… yes, Kathy,” I replied, realizing I had no choice at this point. “I have gone down on Sam, and I have done it with other men. You must realize, darling, that I am a 34-year-old woman who has been married, and that's a lot different from being a 15-year-old virgin. My need is… different, more established… more adult.”
“Oh, I didn't mean that,” she said, appearing to be laughing at me again. “I'm not going to do that… yee-uk! That would be awful. I just wondered if it was normal, if adults like you or Father… you know-decent people-if they did that. That's all.”
A great flood of relief swept over me. I began to laugh with Kathy, and I mixed her a very light Scotch and water. We chatted a while about some new clothes I wanted to buy her for her fall wardrobe, and then when the sun came up and I began to yawn, we agreed it was time to go to bed.
I began to undress over by the closet as Kathy put on her baby-dolls. As I took off my bra and panties, I had the strangest feeling that I was being watched, only to glance in the mirror on the door and notice Kathy. She was sitting on the side of the bed with one leg tucked under her, and her hand right between her legs.
She was looking right at me as I stood there naked, her eyes seeming to dance all over my body. I tightened up inside and could not seem to catch my breath. My head was dizzy and goosepimples sprung out all over me. I think my hands were beginning to perspire because I recall rubbing the palms of my hands with my fingers in my restlessness.
“Mother?” her voice beckoned to me ever so softly, and I thought I detected a tremor of it, a kind of subdued breathlessness “Yes…?” I replied. “Turn around a minute so I can see you.”
“Kathy… why…?” I mumbled under my breath, almost losing control, wishing I could pass out before it was too late.
“Oh, gosh, Mother,” she said with a bubbly lift to her voice, her eyes taking me in with a warm smile, “I sure hope I have a body like you when I'm 34. You're super!”