Chapter 13

That morning, when someone hammered upon the door, Charlotte struggled out of bed to answer it. She wrapped herself into a decent robe and made her way to the door, still only half awake. "Yes?"

He was a tall man, darkly saturnine and well, though casually dressed. He said, "Mrs. Mason, I presume? I'm Jerry Chapman."

Charlotte stood blocking the doorway. "Oh? What can I do for you?"

His eyes touched her here, there, and Charlotte felt as if she had been undressed. He said, "I'd like to talk to my wife."

From behind Charlotte, Elena said, "I'll be right there, Charlotte. Don't invite that son of a bitch inside."

But Jerry Chapman pushed open the door and brushed by Charlotte. "Elena, goddammit ... "

Charlotte saw that his eyes were darting from side to side, checking out the interior of the house car, glancing quickly at the bunks and their arrangement. Jan Mason sat sleepily up in her bed, and Charlotte saw with a glad rush of relief that the boys were both up and gone somewhere-probably out exploring the creek that ran beside the campsite.

Not that he could have proven anything by their presence, she thought; her son and Elena's son had a perfect right to travel with their mothers, and nobody would see the group as anything but family. Unless someone knew what had been going on, Charlotte admitted, and felt her face turn warm.

Elena swung her legs out of her bunk, pulling on a see-through robe that did very little to hide the naked loveliness of her body. Charlotte realized that this man had made love to Elena's body many, many times, and that he was most certainly familiar with every warm inch of it. Uncertainly, Charlotte stood there, feeling awkwardly out of place, but not sure of what she ought to do.

"Stay put, Charlotte," Elena said. "Jerry, what the hell do you mean, pushing in here? I'll call a state cop and have you locked up, dammit. This is private property, and it isn't mine. You force your way in here..."

He lifted both hands. "Easy, baby. I just wanted to ... "

Elena flared at him: "I know what you wanted to do! You wanted to find some guy in the sack with me, so you could pressure me about the kid and cut down on your alimony, right?"

Jerry Chapman grinned. "Something like that. Where is the boy?"

"Out," Elena snapped. "Jan, dear-maybe you'd better go out, too. It might get rough in here. But you stay, Charlotte-I'll need a witness."

Hurrying, Jan ducked behind her curtains and came out moments later in a thin blouse and tight jeans; barefoot, she skipped out of the trailer, and Jerry Chapman's eyes followed her with frank admiration.

"Jerry," Elena said, "she's only fourteen."

He shrugged and Charlotte remembered that chronological age didn't really count for very much any more. Jan could just as well screw this man, as she'd done it with Blair-this man's son; as she'd done it with her own brother.

"Don't I get offered a drink, after coming this far?"

"Go to hell," Elena said. "You start by taking that door."

He smiled at Charlotte, and she saw that he was a handsome man. "Elena carries grudges, but she picks beautiful friends."

"One beer," Elena said, "and no more, then out. And stop hustling Charlotte; she already knows what a louse you are."

They sat at the little table, coffee perking on the small stove behind them, but having a beer while the women waited to begin breakfast. Charlotte thought that if she hadn't been forewarned, she might easily have fallen victim to Jerry Chapman's charm. Then she flushed, and remembered that she had already fallen for his son, that she had screwed his boy, and would do so again. The idea pushed him farther from her, and she concentrated upon finishing her beer, then upon busying herself at the stove, allowing them to talk.

"Elena," he said, "I had a hell of a time tracing you down. It wasn't like you to leave so abruptly, and one of your neighbors mentioned a red and white house car, so I. . . "

"Got suspicious as usual, and checked some more, to find the bus was Charlotte's-or her cousin's, really; I got a bunch of big-mouthed neighbors. Drink up, Jerry-time for you to haul ass."

He sighed. "I don't suppose there'd be any chance of Charlotte here going to see what became of her daughter?"

"No way" Elena said emphatically. "I know what you've got in mind, and forget it already."

Jerry clinked down his empty beer can. "You're usually pretty eager. When you're not, it means you're getting plenty. Maybe some guys are traveling with you two..."

"And maybe they're not. Out, Jerry-and right goddamned now, or I start hollering for the cops. There is that peace bond, you know."

"Okay," he said, "okay. For right now, that is. But you keep your nose clean, baby-because I'll be checking up on you from time to time."

"From a distance," Elena said. "Good-bye and good luck."

He smiled at Charlotte, and she could see the rakish look about him, the sexy look he had passed on to Blair. "Thanks, Charlotte. I'd like to see more of you."

Elena put her hands against his back. "Fat chance. Are you going?"

He shrugged and let her urge him through the doorway. Charlotte watched him stand there for a moment, then walk slowly across the large campground toward a car. "I feel kind of sorry for him."

"Don't," Elena advised, "because the next step is you're on your back with your legs spread, wondering how the hell he got into you so fast. Not that I'd give a damn, you understand; Jerry might even be good for you, because he's a horny and imaginative bastard. But I know he just wants to get out from under the alimony, and like I told him-no way. Until I decide, that is-which may be like ten or twelve eons from now. Whatever the hell an eon is."

Charlotte bit her lower lip. "Do you think he would have suspected anything, if he'd seen the boys here?"

Elena finished her can of beer and dropped the can in the plastic trash bag. "If he'd been a little earlier, he wouldn't have had to suspect; he'd have damned well known. Good thing they crawled out of the sacks and took off."

Charlotte put bread in the toaster. "Maybe we ought to leave right away."

"I'll buy that. And from now on, we don't stop in public campgrounds, only off on side roads; just in case my own private albatross tries to follow us again. He's a persistent bastard, if nothing else."

Scrambling eggs, Charlotte said, "Want to find the kids?"

"Sure-soon's I make a visit to the bathroom. Jerry and his beer for breakfast bit."

They ate well, and Charlotte could not help but think of the energy they'd all burned the night before, energy they were replacing now with food And she felt a lifting of her nipples as she thought how more activity would take place later in the day, whenever and wherever they stopped to camp. Charlotte also knew that she would be happy when they could stop squirming away, when they could camp in some peaceful glen, away from the eyes of strangers, for days on end.

It would be an idyll of pure sensuousness, she thought; a perfect sharing of bodies and minds, with each of them doing everything for the others, blending flesh and juices, sex and love. Closing her eyes, Charlotte could picture all the suntanned bodies, bronzed and golden, see the vees of Jan's pubis, Elena's vulva, the boys' hairy sacs and their beguiling cocks, erect or limp. She opened her eyes and shook her head, knowing that at the moment, she was only tempting herself, that there could be no sex at the moment; they had to be off down the highway.

"My turn to drive," Elena said. "You kids can hang out in back-or whatever you have in mind for openers. I need Charlotte for my navigator right now." .

Then they were on the road, rock music blaring from the radio in back, light and frequent laughter echoing from the two boys and the girl who were closer than anyone had thought they could ever be.

"What about Mark? If my ex-husband found us, Mark Travers probably can, too. If you didn't chase him off forever with your shy act. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea if he did catch up with the group; he'd kind of round out the numbers. like three guys and three gals-all exceedingly interchangeable, of course."

Charlotte frowned out of the windshield, and her hands clenched upon the roadmap on her knees. She had never thought of Mark Travers and Jan together; it was difficult to picture her little daughter and a mature man, in sexual embrace. Yet, she had to admit there was nothing stopping Jan from screwing any man or boy she wanted; nothing beyond the bounds of good taste, that was.

And Mark with Elena? Her friend had always kidded about sleeping with Mark, and only of late had Charlotte known that Elena wasn't kidding, and never had been. Still, Charlotte had never quite seen Mark Travers as a-a swinger, a man moving from one willing encounter to the next. Handsome, yes; attractive, yes; and seemingly very much the male animal. But was he male enough, animal enough, to understand and appreciate the things that were unfolding within this group?

It was entirely possible that Mark Travers would recoil in shock and indignation, were he ever to learn of the incest, the exchanging of lovers that had already taken place among the people on this far out vacation. And Charlotte could not blame him if he did. Only a few days ago, her reaction would have been the same.

Now she was far past the point of no return. She could not undo the events that had come off in most cases with her consent, in a few, without it. Even if she wanted to change the immediate past, Charlotte could not, and she knew in her heart that she never wanted to return to that drab, hidebound and frustrated past.

"Hey," Elena said. "You plan to keep sexy Mark to yourself? Well holler foul."

"I-I was thinking about him," Charlotte answered. "Maybe I'm not so afraid of him now, and I might be able to-to do it with him. But how do I know he wouldn't be disgusted or call the police, or something, if he ever found out about us, about everything?"

Elena honked the horn at a VW that cut too close in front of the bus. Then she said, "Well just have to pull off a little entrapment, I'd say. like me screwing him, and you catching him at it. Or sucking Little Jan-that would be the goodie! Kind of casually walk in on them while they're banging away, and see if he can explain having his rod up your juvenile type daughter. After that, how can he act horrified because you and me are getting some on the side? I mean, one kid is the equal of another kid, right?"

"Suppose he won't-won't make it with Jan? I mean, she's just a baby, and maybe everyone isn't as-well-as passionate."

Elena tooled the house bus around a slow truck and guided it back into the right lane. "If Mark doesn't take Jan up on it when she makes a pass, he's too square to live. That's the prettiest, sweetest, and I might say, hottest little doll anywhere, and if he misses the chance to stick that-well, he's some kind of nut, and who needs him."

Charlotte didn't want to keep thinking about Mark, or about Mark making love to Jan. It was one thing, to lay a young girl; it was something else altogether, to screw your own son. Mark might not understand that, at all.

"Who needs either one of them-Mark or Jerry? We have our own lovers, and we couldn't ask for more attentive ones. We have the whole country ahead of us, and-and all the things we haven't done yet."

"Yeah," Elena agreed. "And since I'm driving, you can go on back there and have a tall, cold one for yourself. I'll hold off until we park for the day."

"Okay," Charlotte said, feeling the need for a drink, made to feel unsure and on edge by the surprise visit of Elena's husband. "I'll be back in a little while. Remember, we have to pick a snug, safe little place to park tonight-away from the camp sites."

Swaying a bit with the motion of the bus, Charlotte went into the back, to find the bottle of bourbon and a glass. She took a long drink straight, then mixed a healthy one with coke from the little ice chest. Only then did she look up at the end bunk, the one that was nominally hers.. "

"Mom-if this is going to bug you in any way, then we'll draw the curtains," smiled Jan.

Swallowing a big gulp of her drink, Charlotte put out one hand to brace herself and shook her head. "N-no, that's all right. I mean-we're all supposed to be honest with each other, right?"

"Up front, mom," her daughter said. "Come on, guys; let's get it on."

"You can join in, mom," her son said from the big bunk, "or just watch for now and make it later."

"Yes, Mrs. Mason darling," Blair said. "Any way you want it."

Again, Charlotte shook her head and backed up a step or two. "N-not just yet," she said. "You kids enjoy yourselves."

Quickly, she finished her drink and turned to pour another, because that had been a hell of a thing for a mother to say to her son and daughter and to her lover. For all three of them were together on the bunk, and all three of them were gleamingly, exquisitely naked.

Enjoy yourselves, kids, she'd said; just as if they were going swimming, or about to start a card game, or something simple as that. When in reality, they were about to fuck each other, when they were getting ready to join in a group sexual party, these three beautiful young people whom she had known so well-and really had not known at all.

Until now, she thought; oh yes, for now, and the times that had immediately preceded this exotic and stimulating scene, Charlotte was truly coming to know her own children, and the boy she had adored from afar. For there was no secrecy in sex, nothing hidden when the sensual gratifications were practiced out in the open this way. So she could see her son, her daughter, her lover, as they all bared their innermost desires and slaked them.

Tossing down her third drink, Charlotte got a grip on herself, and sank down onto the padded breakfast bench to watch. She had to force herself to stay put, because all her old inhibitions rose to the surface and tried to choke back this newfound freedom. But the whiskey helped, and Charlotte held to her glass as the three youngsters moved toward each other.