As we approached the house, though, on our way back, a lady was standing on the patio, looking directly at us. Drink in one hand, the other pressed in a defiant fist at her hip, she had to be the old lady, we knew this before we could make out her face.
She was wearing a short summer dress, silk apparently, and it showed she still had the same figure of the girl in the pictures we'd discovered in the trunk the day before. Her hair, the same dark blonde as Sandy's, was longer than it was the last time I'd seen her-almost a year ago-and was blowing in the wind.
We instinctively stopped holding hands when we saw her, but once I'd let go I didn't know what to do with my hand. I looked for a pocket but my tight shorts didn't have any. Mother's presence there on the patio, the arrogance of her stance, intimidated me and made me feel like a helpless, childish jellyfish.
By the time we could make out her mouth it was set in a frown and when we could see her eyes they were alternately glaring at our faces and giving our bodies the once-over.
In spite of the fact that neither of us had seen our mother for so many months there was no rush to embrace, not even a cheerful hello. We walked up to her warily and braced ourselves for the worst.
“I've been waiting for you two,” she said.
“When did you get here, Mommy?” I said sheepishly.
“Apparently right after you two left for your romp in the woods. Where have you been for three hours?”
“Just around,” I said. “Looking at the places we used to go when we were kids.”
“Well you're not exactly kids any more, at least physically. What do you think this is, a nudist colony? How dare you two dress like that!”
She darted the icicles of her stare over Sandy's body, nude under tight short-shorts and a see-through tee shirt, and turned to me, also visibly naked under thin cotton shorts and nothing else. What made the situation worse was that our bodies were still wet from the last swim we'd taken, and showed clearly through the thin fabrics.
“What difference does it make?” I said. “There's nobody else around here. Why should we have to dress up?”
“It's not a question of wearing formal attire. It's a question of being clothed rather than unclothed. And I classify you two as unclothed right now.” She turned to Sandy. “Now go up to your room immediately and put on the following: a pair of panties, a bra, a decent pair of shorts and a blouse that isn't transparent.”
Sandy, flaming with rage and shame at being so viciously humiliated, took off running.
“And as for you,” she continued, “what do you think you're posing for-a pin-up boy's magazine? Your body's developed a lot more than you realize in the last year. It could be pretty disconcerting to have you prancing around…”
“What's that mean, disconcerting?”
“Never mind what the hell it means. Go up and put on some underpants and stop showing yourself off so much. And put on a shirt. And don't wear such tight pants.”
I stood there, waiting for the rest of the sermon.
“Go ON!” she screamed. “Do I still have to dress you and undress you?”
I looked into her eyes and seemed to have caught her off guard, because she blushed and turned away, glugging some more of her drink. I bolted upstairs.
I found Sandy in her room. She had already taken off the tee shirt and was stripping off her shorts as I entered.
“I hate her!” she said with furious tears in her eyes.
We came together and embraced. I kissed her eyes.
“She won't be here long,” I said. “She'll be gone before you know it.”
“She's going to ruin everything, I know that.”
“No she won't. We'll just have to be a little more careful.”
I heard footsteps in the hall and whirled around. Mother stormed into the room. “What the hell's going on now!” she screamed. She walked up to Sandy and slapped her hard across the face. Sandy pulled away and feebly tried to cover her nakedness. “You little whore, how dare you flaunt your naked body like that!”
“But he's my brother, what difference…”
“I don't care what he is. You're not little brats any more, you're both past puberty.” She turned to me. “Now get out of here and don't let me catch you in here again.”
I started to leave.
“I can see the two of you are going to need a lot more supervision than you've been getting.”
From then on, we got plenty of supervision. Mother's bedroom was directly across from Sandy's and right next to mine. There was no way we could possibly get together undetected at night, even if we had dared to try.
In the mornings, she would personally waken us, personally select Sandy's outfit for the day and accompany us down to breakfast. She kept Sandy busy with housework all morning and sent me off to play by myself. I would wander off into the woods where my love and I had been together. I would swim in the stream, lie naked on the mossy rock, drink of the milkwoods by the spring and roll in the strawberry fields, my mind awash with memories and fantasies of Sandy. After a few days of frustration, though, after I had begun to use my hand to manipulate myself into an artificial and deeply unsatisfying orgasm, I stopped going to those places and sought out deeper, gloomier parts of the woods in which to brood and daydream.
After lunch, if the weather were clear, Mother would take us to the lake where there was a public beach. At least there I could see something of Sandy's body and we could always manage to sneak a few furtive embraces under the water when Mother wasn't looking.
One day, when Mother, lying face down, seemed to be asleep, Sandy suddenly pulled down my trunks and hastily, violently thrashed my hypersensitive cock to an almost instant ejaculation.
Unzipping her one-piece suit from behind, I slid my hands in over her breasts and then moved my right hand downward, over her smooth belly and abdomen and down between her legs. I tugged her suit down enough to allow me to insert two fingers up inside her as far as they would go. She rode my hand desperately, moaning and gasping as I slithered up and down and around and worked her rapidly-for she was as keyed-up and hungry for satisfaction as I was-to a purring, biting, clawing orgasm.
We separated, readjusted our suits and swam innocently back into the beach to take our respective places on either side of drowsy Mama.
Even the use of the bathroom after these outings was a carefully programmed bit of business. Sandy would use it first, and I would follow her. While I was showering, Mother would again select Sandy's outfit for the evening and have her safely dressed by the time I emerged.
Sandy, of course, resented being treated like a pre-school child and fought Mother every step of the way. The more Sandy fought her, the more vicious and spiteful Mother would get. Their yells and screams and catlike hisses, their curses, accusations and threats rocked the house day and night.
Dinner was always a stormy affair, with one or the other or both of them usually bolting out of the room in a rage before the meal was over. Grandma did what she could to make peace between them, but it was a hopeless cause. Hate was the only thing that bound them, and if they had suddenly started loving one another like a nice mother and daughter neither would know what to do with herself all day.
Mother's main ace in the hole in threatening us into submission was this: “If you don't do what I tell you to, I'll drop the custody fight and you can go live with your father. You think I'm so bad, just remember what he's like. And if you think he was rotten before, you ought to see him now.”
One night Grandma asked her how the case stood. She refused to discuss it in front of the children, she said. Besides, she wasn't too clear about all the lawyer's fussy points. It was all too complicated.
“Well, what's going to happen to us?” I asked.
“Who knows?” she said. “It's all in the hands of the lawyers.”
“Who gets the furniture in the apartment?” Sandy hissed.
“Who knows or cares? Same as with you.”
“Yeah, we're just a couple of pieces of furniture to you. Why don't you auction us off and split the profits.”
“How do you split a nickel?” Mother replied. “Well, maybe we could get upwards of six cents for you on the white slave market.”
“I'd rather live with King Farouk than you anyway.”
“Does Daddy want to own us?” I asked.
“Yes, dear, he does. That's what we're fighting about. I want my two precious darlings, too.”
“So you can warp our minds and make us as sick as you are,” Sandy added.
“Wood warps, dear. Your mind, as far as I can tell, isn't composed of wood. As far as I can tell, it resembles a marshmallow. Marshmallows don't warp.” She lifted her glass. “A toast to your mind, my dear.”
Sandy's face flamed. She scooped a tablespoonful of mashed potatoes from the bowl in front of her and hurled them at Mother. They splattered over her face.
“Toast you, lady!” she yelled and stomped from the table. Wiping the mess from her face, Mother jumped up and dashed up the stairs after Sandy. The battle was on.
Grandma and I exchanged a resigned look and went on with our dinner.
Our evenings were dull and miserable. Usually, the three of us would sit around the TV set watching stupid, boring inanities. It wasn't so bad for Mother, because by the time evening rolled around she was always looped and flying high, and she had Sandy there to throw barbs at and start arguments with whenever she got bored.
The only way Sandy and I managed to survive those evenings was to exchange long looks of longing as frequently as possible without being detected, and to work our way out into the kitchen at least once so that we could paw each other desperately and exchange deep, sucking kisses that succeeded in working up our desire to the unbearable stages, only to have to go back to the TV set and burn.
Occasionally we'd hop into the car and go into town or to the local drive-in to catch a movie. The drive-ins were the best, because Mother, who usually brought a thermos of martinis with her, would sooner or later have to make a trip to the girl's room. Sandy and I, meanwhile, were prepared, each of us having made a trip before to remove our underpants.
The minute Mother left the car Sandy's skirt would go up and my pants would go down. We fondled and manipulated each other until Mother was out of sight. Then she would jump onto my lap, straddling my naked thighs with her own and leaning forward on the dashboard as I surged up into her. We allowed ourselves sixty strokes-about a minute-and because we were both so worked up to the event and so attuned to each other's bodies, we always managed to come simultaneously on the sixtieth stroke, whereupon Sandy would dismount, pull on her panties, add a little of the perfume she'd been wearing and try not to look too pleased when Mother returned.
But these moments were few and far between, and the boredom and frustration of our lives was wearing down our nerves. Mother, too, was beginning to feel claustrophobic. Because of the gossip concerning the divorce she hadn't called or visited any of her friends in the town, but it was impossible to avoid bumping into them on the street or in the supermarket.
Friends began calling her and inviting her to parties. She decided against going out at first, then changed her mind and told us one afternoon we'd be going to the Bridges for a party that night.