Chapter 7

A little over a week later, Ricky woke up on a Saturday morning feeling really bugged. He knew his mother had had another date with Baxter Shaver, and he seethed inside every time he thought of them together. His affection and concern for Sheila were genuine, in spite of his cynical attitude toward adults in general, and went far beyond the sexual hangup he did his best to control. The prospect that she might actually marry the smug, bald-headed prig instead of the man she really loved gnawed at him constantly. He knew she'd be miserable with Shaver, and he and Wendy would be worse than miserable.

When he awakened with such thoughts swirling through his mind, he knew that he'd finally have to do something about the problem. He had to at least try talking to Sheila, calmly and objectively, and point out to her all that was involved. This was a good day to do it, he decided, when he suddenly realized that he had awakened for one of the few times since he'd reached puberty without an erection. The lack amazed him, even frightened him a little. Was it possible, he wondered, to have too much sex? To wear one's self out before twenty? He quickly rejected that kind of reasoning, reminding himself of his spectacular performances over the last couple of weeks. Besides, his satiated condition had certain advantages. Instead of thinking about breasts and legs and furry pussies, he could contemplate more serious things in these early morning hours.

And the first thing to be considered was his mother's relationship with Baxter Shaver. It sickened him to know that the revolting man had touched Sheila in any way, and it enraged him to have to admit that Shaver had possessed her completely.

Of course, Shaver wasn't the first one. Ron Graves had been making it with Sheila for some time now. Ricky had heard her moans and soft cries of pleasure more than once when he was supposed to be asleep. With the door to his room open just the barest crack, he had heard them banging away on the couch in the living room. And he was sure there had been others before Ron. After all, Sheila was a passionate woman, and his father had been gone for a long time.

He couldn't blame men for wanting Sheila either. He thought about how great she looked in a bikini, the white one, for instance, that showed off her summer tan. Remembering the way the narrow band of cloth criss-crossed her breasts, Ricky sucked in his breath. Almost all the sweet flesh showed except for the pink-starred nipples, and sometimes when she was careless, even the beginning of the areola could be seen. And her legs! The calves, so full and beautifully curved, tapered up past the rounded, dimpled knees to the satin-skinned fullness of thighs. Showing below the tiny triangle of the bikini briefs at the rear were those delightful little mounds where the thighs joined the buttocks, each twinkling with its own beguiling dimple. In front, where the thighs joined her torso, the shorts didn't even try to hide the peach fuzz that marked the beginning of the lush, pale-blonde pubic hair that hid the pink lips of love.

He remembered the day three years ago that he and she had gone to the beach alone. The sun had been hot and the Atlantic smooth and glassy. Sheila had stretched out beside him and lain quietly for a while with her eyes closed while he sprawled on his belly and covertly looked at her body from behind his sun glasses until he got a hard-on.

Then she had opened her eyes and smiled at him kind of lazy like before reaching into her tote bag for sun tan lotion and handing it to him.

"Put this on me, will you, baby?"

His hand had started to shake as he uncapped the bottle and poured a puddle of the liquid into his palm. Sheila had noticed. . "What's the matter, fella? You seem a little nervous. Is it all the groovy little chicks prancing around?"

He glanced around in surprise. He hadn't even noticed the girls on the beach. He had been too busy looking at his mother's spectacular body.

"N-no . . . I'm just afraid of spilling this stuff," he said. "It would make an awful mess on the towel."

"Don't worry about that," she said, rolling over onto her stomach. "Just rub it on . . . all over, and then there won't be enough left to spill."

His hand had touched the warm skin of her back with trembling reverence and started to rub the lotion between her shoulder blades, moving slowly up onto her shoulders and the back of her neck.

"Ummmm, that feels groovy," Sheila murmured.

He wished she wouldn't use words like groovy. Ricky hated older people who tried to talk like the young. They sounded like idiots, and he didn't want Sheila to sound like an idiot.

His hand progressed down her back at a snail's pace, rubbing in the oily liquid as he went. When he came to where the low-cut bikini left the upper swelling of her buttocks bare, he paused uncertainly. Did she really want him to touch her there?

"Be sure you get it all over the top of my butt, sweetheart," Sheila said in the same, sleepy voice she'd used before. "You may think that's tough from sitting on it all the time, but if it gets sunburned, you find out it's pretty tender."

Tender . . . soft . . . silken soft. His fingers tingled with the thrill of touching it, and his swollen penis throbbed with excitement.

"Be sure and get it under the waistband," she said. "You know how it hurts when you get home and discover a blistered band of skin where your clothes slipped down and left the untanned part exposed."

"You mean under . . . under your pants?" Ricky almost choked getting the words out.

"Right. You don't want Mama to end up with a red ass, do you, baby?" Sheila's husky laugh plus the invitation to run his fingers under the white band of cloth onto the actual cheeks of her ass caused his aching shaft to jump against the constricting material of his shorts.

"I ... how's this? Is this all right?" His voice cracked as his hand pushed under the fragment of cloth and the firm, round flesh filled the cup of his hand as he rubbed.

"Fine. That ought to do the job. Don't forget to untie my halter and oil the strip of skin under it."

"Untie your halter?" he repeated in a daze as the realization hit him that her breasts would be bare. Even if he couldn't see them with her lying on her belly, he would know they were naked.

"Yes, dear," Sheila said. "You know you're acting kind of backward, Rick, for a fourteen-year-old. Haven't you ever greased down any of your little girl friends?"

"Uh . . . yeah . . . sure," he choked. She obviously didn't understand that smearing oil on some kid and being allowed to touch the glory of her body were totally different things.

His hands were all over his mother's pertly rounded buttocks, moving up and down the slopes, sliding his fingers into the deep crevice between, rubbing the lotion in while he imagined himself doing other things. He tried to picture what it would be like if she were lying on her back with her legs thrown open, the silken, silvery-blonde muff of her pussy spread wide for his inspection and . . .

"I think that's enough for there," Sheila's voice ended his fantasy, "but don't forget the backs of my thighs, love."

"Okay," he said, and his hand slipped reluctantly from under the briefs and moved onto the backs of her legs. New excitement coursed through him. To stroke his hands up and down the firm columns from the indentation behind the knee to the bulge where the thigh joined the buttocks was incredibly erotic for a boy his age.

"You have good hands, Ricky. Someday they're going to make some woman very, very happy." The voice was sensual but drowsy.

Suppose she falls asleep ? . . . sound asleep, while I'm still doing this"? Then I could do anything I want and she'd never know the difference. I could even put my hand under the front of her bikini. . . run my fingers through the fine, pale hair . . . touch the sweet, moist valley . . . maybe even work a finger between the soft lips . . .

"What's the matter? You've stopped rubbing," Sheila complained, puncturing his dream.

"OH . . . uh . . . just forgot what I was doing."

"Well, that's enough on that side anyway," Sheila said, turning over so quickly that she apparently forgot the bra was loose. It dropped off her breasts, and Ricky stared open-mouthed at the upturned white mounds with the pink nipples standing up straight and hard.

"Wow! How about that?" Sheila giggled. "Sheila's getting a little careless in front of her big boy, isn't she?"

She took her time about covering up. There was no one close to them on the sparsely populated beach, and it was unlikely that anyone but Ricky was feasting his eyes on the creamy mounds.

"For heaven's sake, Ricky, haven't you ever seen a pair of titties before?" she asked lightly, turning a little sideways so that both spongy mounds brushed his arm as she slipped them into the cups of the bra-like halter.

Ricky moved his lips, but not a sound came out.

"Cat's got his tongue, but his eyes are practically rolling out of his head," Sheila laughed. "You're really a very naughty boy to stare at your poor old mother's boobs that way, but I guess we all have to learn some place."

"Sheila, I . . . " He felt as though he were choking to death, and his aching cock was about to burst its way right out of his shorts.

"Oh, he is a bad boy!" Sheila said as she noticed his bulging crotch. "A bad, bad boy to get all swollen just from staring at his mother's breasts."

She reached out a hand and trailed it across the telltale lump. The touch of her fingers was all it took. Ricky sobbed out a curse as he felt the spasm of his orgasm and the sticky white fluid filled his shorts and oozed from under the leg band.

Sheila had pulled back, shocked. "I think you'd better simmer down, young man! Go take a swim and cool off!"

Blushing with shame and chagrin, Ricky had stumbled to his feet and dashed the forty or fifty feet to the water's edge. He plunged blindly into the surf and swam for a long time, trying to wash away the gooey jism and the sick shame that went with it.

That day had marked the real turning point in his life. Up until then he had been an ordinary kid with an ordinary interest in sex, but that day when his mother had played the temptress and then laughed at him and reproached him had changed all that. From then on he had been different . . . sex-driven . . . moving from girl to girl and woman to woman.

The hell with it, he thought. She did me a favor! I've been having a ball and pretty soon I'm going to have the biggest bang of all when I get into Alix Harper's delicious cunt!

But in the meantime, Sheila was wallowing in lust with Baxter Shaver and threatening to marry him.

"Like hell she will!" he muttered, getting out of bed. "I'll kill the sonofabitch first!"

Tossing aside his pajamas, he went into the bathroom and turned on the shower, wondering idly what it would be like to kill someone. He soaped himself while he considered a variety of methods: a bomb in Shaver's car and a telephone call to the police blaming Communists; a midnight hanging by hooded men with the Ku Klux Klan getting the credit; a sniper's bullet through a window with evidence left to implicate the Mafia. He discarded all of them as the warm water cascaded down on him. Not one of those ideas would work, because they all tended to make Shaver a hero and a martyr. That wouldn't do at all. He had to come up with something better than that.

What about shooting the pig down publicly on the front steps of the high school and claiming he was defending his mother's honor? That might work. At least that scenario would put Shaver in the worst possible light and Ricky Garrett in the best.

But it meant he'd have to buy a gun and learn how to use it. Buying it wouldn't be hard, because he still had money left out of the three hundred he'd bullied out of Tess. Maybe Ron would teach him how to use it. Now there was one disadvantage he'd never before considered about not having a father-there was no one to tell a kid how to go about committing a murder.

Ricky felt a lot better as he dried himself and got dressed. He wasn't going to let Sheila fall into Baxter Shaver's sweaty hands no matter what. The first thing to do was talk to her. If he stayed calm and talked to her sensibly, maybe he wouldn't have to do anything more than that.

He went down the hall and knocked on his mother's bedroom door. Sheila always slept late on Saturdays and Sundays, and today was no exception. He heard her stir and then her sleepy voice.

"Yes? What is it?"

"It's Ricky. I want to talk to you, Sheila."

"Can't it wait?" Her voice was petulant. "It's still practically the middle of the night."

"It's ten-thirty, and this is important," he said, pushing open the door and going in.

He was sorry almost at once. Sheila was sprawled diagonally across the bed with the covers pushed down and her shortie gown bunched around her waist. For a few seconds, he just stood staring at the smooth, white thighs, the soft, relaxed belly and the forest of ash blonde hair between the two.

"Jesus H. Christ Almighty!" He heard the words hiss from between his teeth.

Sheila opened her eyes a slit. "Oh, it's you," she said, pulling the nightgown down and the sheet up.

"I said it was when I knocked," he said tightly, aware that his whole body was suddenly on fire with lust.

"Yes, I guess you did," she said, rubbing at her eyes with both fists like a child. "What do you want?"

"I want to talk to you about Baxter Shaver," he said. "You had another date with him last night and ... "

"And that's none of your business," she said, stretching in a way that caused her breasts to lift toward the ceiling and the strap of the nightgown to fall off one shoulder and expose the top of a creamy white breast.

Ricky gritted his teeth and clenched his fists at his sides. The way she displayed her body, seemingly unaware of its effect on him, nearly drove him crazy.

She squinted at him while she searched for a cigarette on the nightstand. "What's the matter, Rick? You look awfully tense." Her fingers encountered a torn package and shook it. "Damn, it's empty!"

"You shouldn't smoke anyway," he said, "and certainly not in bed."

She laughed huskily. "It's nice of you to worry about your mother, Rick."

"I'm more worried about you and that shithead Baxter Shaver," he said. "You're not going to marry him!"

"You're coming on a little strong, aren't you?" Sheila said. "I've heard of heavy-handed fathers but never of a heavy-handed son."

"You don't know that pig like I do," Ricky said, moving closer to the bed in spite of his resolve not to. "If you knew what he was really like, you wouldn't give him the time of day."

She shrugged and the shoulder strap slid farther down until he could almost see the nipple.

"For Christ's sake, will you cover yourself?" he grated.

Sheila's blue eyes opened wider as she pulled the strap back up onto her shoulder. "That's an odd way to act. After all, I am your mother."

"That's right! That's exactly the point. You're my mother."

Sheila shook her head. "You know, Ricky, sometimes I don't understand you at all."

"Don't you?" The desire that was always smoldering just beneath the surface was almost choking him now.

"No. Perhaps it's the life you lead, the women you know, that makes you act so oddly around me."

Could she possibly be as stupid and unseeing as she seemed? Can't she see how it tears me apart just to look at her?

"Never mind that," he said, trying to get a grip on his emotions. "I want to talk about Shaver."

She patted the edge of the bed. "Sit down, honey. You look like you're about to keel over."

Ricky perched gingerly on the side of the bed, her perfume and the heat of her body making him dizzy.

"Now, what's this all about?" Sheila asked, patting his knee. "What have you got against Baxter?"

"He's a mealy-mouthed, two-faced bastard, and he'll do nothing but make your life miserable."

"Oh, come now, he's no worse than most men," Sheila said. "If you've seen one, you've seen them all."

"Does that include Ron?"

Sheila's lips twisted in a bitter smile. "Ron's a weakling. He'll never amount to anything . . . never have a dime to his name."

"Is that the only thing that's important?" Ricky demanded. "Whether he has money or a big name?

What about the man himself? Where's your sense of values?"

"Is this my little cynic talking?" Sheila asked. "I thought you were the original sneerer at sentimental claptrap like love and marriage."

"Damn it, listen to me!" Ricky said, slamming his open hand down on the mattress. "I'm not going to let you marry that guy!"

"You can't stop me," she said, sitting up and glaring at him. "I'm old enough to know my own mind, and you can just butt out! It's none of your business anyway!"

"Well, I'm making it my business," Ricky said, grabbing at her shoulder. "If you marry that creep, I'll ..."

"I know what's wrong with you," she said. "You're jealous! I've heard of boys who were jealous when their mothers decided to remarry, but I thought you were too sophisticated for that kind of kid stuff."

"Kid stuff!" Ricky said and took her by both shoulders and shook her until her hair swirled in a shimmering veil around her head. "Jealous? Of course I'm jealous! You think I'm made out of wood or stone? Don't you know what being around you all the time does to me? Your body .,. your beautiful body ..."

As he shook her, the nightgown fell down, baring her bouncing breasts and letting them jiggle against him. Suddenly Ricky was beyond control. The lust that had been simmering inside him for years boiled over, and he pulled Sheila tightly against him, pushed her head back and burned his lips down on hers.

For a moment, Sheila seemed frozen with shock as Ricky forced her lips open and plunged his tongue deep into the cavern of her mouth. Then she tried to jerk her mouth free while she beat at his chest to push him away.

But Ricky wouldn't be pushed. He had forgotten everything but his crazy lust. He had forgotten the taboos that stood between him and this woman, forgotten that she was his mother. All he could think of was that she was a woman, the most alluring woman in the world, and he meant to have her.

"Stop it! For God's sake, Rick, stop! You don't know what you're doing!" Sheila had managed to break his kiss and was screaming in his face.

Ricky didn't seem to hear as he forced her back on the bed and ripped the nightgown off her breasts completely. Then he knelt staring at the perfect towers of white flesh that had haunted his dreams for what seemed like forever. His eyes glazed as they rested on the lovely slopes, the pink peaks and the deep, snowy valley between. The breasts were rising and falling rapidly as Sheila stared up at him in surprise and fear.

"Ricky . . . what . . . what are you going to . . . to do?"

He leaned over, and his mouth touched her breasts as he held her arms flat on the bed so she couldn't get away. His lips were running over the warm, perfumed flesh, kissing and licking, just as he'd always wanted to do.

"No, no, Ricky! Please . . . this is terrible. This is horribly wrong!" Sheila was squirming and twisting in her efforts to break his grip, but her movements were having the wrong effect, because they rubbed her thighs and lower belly against him and the contact sent throbbing pleasure through his blood-filled cock and traveled in shock waves to the rest of his body, clouding his brain with lust.

His mouth found a nipple, and the taste and feel of it on his tongue was like tinder to the flame already consuming him.

"Ricky . . . please, Ricky!" Sheila brought a knee up to help dislodge him, but that only exposed the furry mat between her thighs as he shoved the leg aside.

His hand went to the soft pelt. The hair was just as fine and silken as he had imagined it would be, and he felt for the wet, satiny lips he knew were hidden there among it.

"You can't be this rotten," she moaned as his fingers slid between the slippery labia and forced them apart. "You wouldn't rape your own mother!"

"You've teased me, tormented me, nearly driven me insane . . . I've got to have you . . . got to!" Ricky husked, his mouth burning kisses all over her belly and the tops of her thighs.

Sheila made a moaning sound that was halfway between terror and something Ricky couldn't name. But it didn't matter. No matter how hard she fought him, no matter how loud she screamed, he was going to have her.

"Ricky, I'm going to try to reason with you," Sheila said. "You can't do this terrible thing! You can't shame me this way! You ..."

His fingers were deep in the soft slit at the base of her belly. They were shoving in and out demandingly, and the fertile glade was wet with the dew of womanly excitement. Whatever Sheila's mind might be thinking, her body was ready for penetration.

There was no turning back for him now. His zipper was down and the big pole of his manhood was out. Sheila was staring at it with both fear and awe in her eyes.

"You've teased me too long. Now you're going to get it," Ricky said, pushing the tip of his penis against her lower belly. You're going to get what you've been asking for, and you're going to like it!"

He dragged his flaming flesh down through the silken pubic hair and between the parted lips to her vagina.

"DON'T! Don't do this! Not to me . . . not to your MOTHER!" Sheila shrieked and clawed at him, raking her nails down his cheek.

Stunned by the terror in her voice and the pain of the scratches, Ricky backed away, wiping blood from his cheek.

"You're sick, Ricky, you're sick!" Sheila hurled each word like an individual weapon. "You need therapy! Any boy who would do that, who would try to rape his own mother, needs help!"

"Help? Sure, I need help. I need a mother who lolls on the beach half-naked and invites me to touch her all over by rubbing suntan oil on her . . . a mother who 'accidentally' walks in wearing peekaboo panties, who parades around in a bath towel that keeps slipping . . . that's the kind of help I need!"

Sheila's blue eyes were wide with fear and astonishment. "But I didn't know," she gasped. "How could I know?"

"How could you help but know?" he said, making a great effort to calm himself, to draw back from the abyss into which he had nearly plunged.

She reached out a hand to him. "I'm sorry. I guess maybe it was partly my fault. I didn't understand. It just seemed like kind of a game, but I thought you understood the rules."

"Oh God!" Ricky groaned, stuffing his cock back inside his pants. "Rules! Rules to a stupid game I didn't even know I was playing!" He yanked up his zipper and lurched off the bed.

"Where are you going?" she asked when he was halfway across the room.

"Out!"

"Ricky, wait a minute. I suppose you realize that after what just almost happened, we can't. . . well, what I mean is ... it won't be safe for us to be alone in the house any more. Besides, I think you need a man around, a father to see that you get straightened out."

He paused with his hand on the door. "Fine. Why don't you hire one?"

"I don't have to hire one," she said. "I know just the man who can handle you and Wendy, a man who has spent his life learning to handle young people . . . Baxter Shaver."

"Oh shiiitttt!" Ricky yelled and walked out the door and slammed it with explosive force behind him.

Fists clenched and fighting down the sobs that threatened to choke him, Ricky raced out of the house and flung himself into his car, jamming his foot down on the starter.

Nothing happened. In his rage, he had forgotten to put the key in the ignition.

"Damn, damn, damn!" He rammed the key in and twisted it so hard it broke off in his hand.

The boy cursed furiously and pounded his fists on the steering wheel. I've got to get to Shaver! I can't wait now to plan and bide my time! I've got to get my hands around that fat neck and start squeezing or I'll never be able to live with what had just happened!

But try as he would, the broken key wouldn't come out of the ignition. It was a job for a locksmith, but Ricky didn't have the time or the patience to call or wait for one.

He decided to hitchhike. That would be better anyway, because then his car wouldn't be seen in the vicinity of Shaver's apartment. Rage jabbing at him like a cattle prod, he leaped from the car and started across the lawn.

"Ricky . . . Ricky, come back!" Sheila was at the door, clutching a blue negligee tightly around her. "Ricky, please ... I've got to talk to you!"

"You've done enough talking!" Ricky yelled back over his shoulder. "You've done enough of everything . . . Mother!"

He broke into a full run as he hit the sidewalk and in another few seconds he turned the corner off their quiet residential street onto a busier thoroughfare where he could expect to thumb down a quick ride to the other side of town.

"I'll get the bastard. I'll get that fucking bastard if it's the last thing I do!"