The first thing Colleen did, when she arrived at her antique queen-size waterbed, was perch her bottom on the edge of its walnut frame, tug off her open-toe golden-tan two-inch-heel pumps and massage her arches. As the improved circulation eased her general weariness, she thought about her son, crashed out in his room after obviously masturbating. “Poor boy,” she murmured. Then, to herself, but also to her dead husband’s imagined presence, she mused, “Like mother, like son, Wally. You didn’t mean to leave us, but you did, and neither of us has been on an even keel for these past four years.”
Flopping backward, Colleen let the baffled waves settle beneath her as she relaxed and continued aloud in a normal conversational tone, “Charlie has never expressed any interest in dating, but of course, he’s a normal teenage boy with normal hormones, so he must think about it. I guess, Wally, that I’m just surprised that I am surprised to learn what any other mother would instinctively or, at least intuitively know.”
While she talked to the ceiling, Colleen continued to undress herself. First, she raised her legs and bicycled them in the air slowly as she skinned off her dark beige form-fitting double-knit pull-on stretch pants. Next, tightening her abs, she curled up from the quietly sloshing mattress and lifted her pastel egg-yolk nylon-acetate blend top’s hem over her head. Laying back down, she arched her back, while she sequentially hiked up her hips, knees and heels, like an inchworm on a twig, as she peeled her opaque white tights past her butt, then down her smooth legs, to fall on the rug in front of her closet.
Since she was parallel to the floor and partly sunk into the bed’s quilted fiber-filled comforter, Colleen wasn’t looking at her surroundings as she shucked her garments. Behind the ajar door to the master bedroom, however, Charles was transfixed as he looked at her and eavesdropped while she confessed her social abstinence to his father’s invisible spirit. “I still miss you, Wally, and I don’t seem to know really how to respond to men who show a romantic interest in me. For instance, my boss, Paul Jackson, lately has been hinting that he would like to make our relationship more personal and social as well as professional. He’s nice, but do I want to complicate my life like that?”
When Charlie was at the Quadrangle Mall, the Victoria Secret poster model had magically momentarily transformed into his mom. Now, as he peeped at his mother, supine in simple white cotton underwear, it was she who became the fantasy model except that, blink as he might, she neither disappeared, nor became less stunning. Her full mounded breasts rose and fell evenly, but dramatically, behind their plunging underwired cups. Her panties weren’t sheer, yet their thin material couldn’t hide her dishwater-dark muff’s arrowhead pointing straight to the vague plump camel-toe at her crotch.
Abruptly, the voyeur and his ruminating subject were interrupted by the china mantle-clock in the living room chiming six times while, at the same moment, three sharp raps reverberated from the bungalow’s front door. These ordinary noises in the otherwise morgue-quiet little home had extraordinary effect. Charles spun on his heels, raced back to his room and leaned panting against his closed door praying to whatever powers that may exist in the universe that his heart would stay in his chest. Looking down at his groin, he was grateful that the scare had returned his engorged penis to its normal attitude.
Colleen, jolted from her reverie, yelped to whoever was knocking, “Just a moment!” Jumping from her bed, she hurriedly grabbed her electric-blue velour bathrobe from her closet, kicked into her pink terry-lined oversized house slippers and rushed from her bedroom. As she hustled along the short hall to the living room, she zipped her robe to her throat, fluffed her ash-blonde medium-length hairdo and called out again, “On my way! Just a sec!” At the door, she deliberately took a deep breath to settle herself, then looked through the fish-eye lens in the door to see who was on her porch.
Outside, Colleen’s forty-one-year-old brother-in-law, Wilford Womack, stood patiently grinning beside a young girl whom she didn’t recognize. As she opened the door, she commented, “Why, Ford, what a nice surprise!” Then, looking at the teenager beside him, she asked, “But who’s this?” Before he could answer, she threw the door wide and added, “I’m sorry! Where are my manners? You caught me unawares, but please… Come inside!”
Down the hall and out of sight, Charlie cracked open his door to learn what he could about the visitor. When he heard his mother greet his Uncle Ford he relaxed, shut his door again, and dug out a clean T-shirt from his chest of drawers. In the living room, Ford said, “Hi, Collie. I’m sorry to bust in unannounced. My date just texted me that she’s caught the flu and can’t go out, but I was already in my car, so I thought I’d pop in and say hello. It’s been a couple of weeks, or more, since we saw each other.”
Then, indicating the girl who hesitantly trailed him into the house, Ford finished, “I actually don’t know who this is. She just happened to be walking up to the door as I parked my car.” He laughed. “I told her, “I’ll flip you to see who knocks and she said, ‘no, you go ahead. I’ll just stand here.’ That’s all I know, even if you torture me!”