Chapter 1
Her first night on the houseboat, Fran stepped from the shower and gasped, doing a frightened double-take at the strange naked body as she reached blindly for a towel in those few quick seconds before she caught her breath again and smiled at her own stupidity. Gazing at her own reflection in the mirror, she felt quite silly at having spooked herself. She had no idea that there was a mirror on the back of the door. She guessed one of the boys must have put it up sometime during the afternoon, while she and Vivian were cleaning the old house. But what surprised her more than the mere presence of the mirror was her failure to recognize her own body. The mirror was a new one of course, and that made a difference, enhancing color and giving a sharper image. Fran took a step closer, frowning. She did not properly credit the displayed feminine attributes. Fran was an honest thirty-nine (and kidded herself that next year she would stay this age like Jack Benny) yet didn't show it. Her plump breasts settled an inch or two lower on her ribcage and her rump was fuller, but otherwise she had the same girlish figure she'd had at seventeen. Her breasts still wobbled more than they swayed and her buttocks undulated when she walked; her trim waist tapered, her belly was flat and sloped into her pubic bush, and her legs were long and downy soft. Only the most minute inspection would turn up tiny hints of striations, evidence that she'd borne children.
Fran cupped her breasts in her hands and lifted them as if weighing their merits. She found herself wondering if they could still turn on a man; in her more objective moments she could find no reason why they wouldn't, but as a woman she harbored a large load of self-doubt. She squeezed and her brown-red nipples erected achingly in her hands. She sucked in her tummy and ran her hand over it, down to the bushy honey blond triangle at her belly's base. A finger nestled into the curls where her thighs met. The tip of her tongue appeared between her lips. Her eyes closed briefly and then opened on her contorted features reflected in front of her. She withdrew her hand and began briskly toweling herself: she didn't want to stir up that hornet's nest! She knew all too well that she had no way to stop it. She had found from ten years' experience that the best way she had of coping with her sex drive was, insofar as possible, to ignore it.
Dressed only in her bathrobe, Fran stepped into the main living area of her houseboat. Carpenter's tools were piled here and there. Sheet-rock which would be used to finish the interior walls was stacked near the door, opening onto the dock. Boxes containing kitchen utensils were lined up along the kitchen wall; their living room furniture and other assorted boxes of belongings were stacked almost to the ceiling on one side of the living room.
Admittedly, her houseboat was just half-finished. As soon as the frame was up and the exterior walls had been nailed on, Fran had decided to begin moving in. While it may have been a foolish idea-too much junk in the way would impede progress-Fran had been anxious to get out of the suburbs.
No one had complained, however. The kids had looked on building the houseboat as an adventure, as a family project, perhaps the last family project before they began building lives of their own, and they had accepted moving in prematurely as part of the adventure, the spice. Fran had said she wanted a houseboat, and they had all pitched in. They were wonderful kids-all of them, not just her own. At twenty-two, Ted had just gotten married and had one year of law school left before taking his bar exam. He'd said that with what his wife Ellen earned and his scholarship, he'd have enough money to get by on, and had seemed eager to start the project. And Vivian, who was seventeen and had just graduated from high school, had worked like a trooper. Ted's buddy Bob, who'd dropped out of school and was at loose ends, volunteered to help, saying he could use the experience. They had great fun together.
Fran was so happy to get away from Orinda. After her divorce, it had seemed like a good place to raise the children, and she had gotten a job there, but with the children raised, it was time to get out. She had sensed that it was now or never, that this was her last chance to begin a new life, a life of her own. And the children's demented father no longer had anything to threaten her with. How could he take them away from her now? She had been stifled long enough. Where could she find a nicer place to make a new beginning than in a houseboat on the bay?
The kids had gone to a movie-the Lord knew they deserved a night off. Alone with her hopes, Fran stepped around a toolbox and over to the bay window, which appropriately enough faced the bay. She looked out on the bay, hugging her bathrobe around her in spite of the heat. She loved the wash of the tide, the gentle creaking of the dock. The subtle constant motion of the water was like a life force, something she was about to tap.
Over the door of the houseboat, visible from the dock, Ted had neatly lettered in gold paint: MAMA'S WHIM.