Cabin at the Lake Ch. 11

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I offer my hand to my new young lover's fiancé, amazed anew at her loveliness. She accepts my hand and rises. As she does, a brief spasm of sorrow crosses Mark's face. His features loosen and for a brief moment I can see how he will look as an old man. He'll be a strikingly good looking older gentleman but even so, I hate to see that future shadow on my young friend's face. Long decades must have their due before his face will attain that look.

I smile at him, offer him my hand. I try not to stare at his penis. The children's father was no slouch when it came to size but Lord Almighty this man is a real find.

"No frowns, you sweet man," I chide as he takes my hand. "I won't allow it." He rises, and I wrap my arms around him once more. "Thank you, Mark," I whisper before turning to smile at Julie, Jewel he calls her, a more deserved nickname would be hard to find. "And thank you, my dear."

Julie puts an arm around each of us.

"No need for 'thank yous' Kat, unless it is from me to you. Did you feel me there with you? I shared every moment of it, every sensation, his and yours. It's as if he made love to me as much as he did to you, even if it was your body that was the vessel. Amazing. Totally, amazing. I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

I kiss her cheek, tell her she's the sweetest thing and step out of the shower. I go to my room and do my best to untangle my hair. Despite my bravado, I'm delaying facing my children. I know Donna had been totally aware of the events in the shower. I'm less sure about the twins but I suspect Donna would have included them. If so, and if their connection was as close as others, I had effectively fucked my sons without ever touching them. Was psychic fucking incest? I believed it was. Had I erred? The children's father and I had been extraordinarily careful to exclude them from touching our minds when we were intimate. As the children grew into adults we'd been equally careful to stay out of their heads. Would Mack be appalled at what I had done?

My heart twists inside my chest and I feel my eyes fill with tears. I miss him so much. I could go days, weeks even, and imagine I had reached the point in my grief were Mack was a memory, tinged with sorrow but mostly a happy memory. Then, out of nowhere I'd find myself wracked with grief and fear as intense as the evening I had stood as the boys crowded around their father and began to scream for someone to call 911. This was one of those times. I retreated inside myself, seeking the consolation I found in isolation.

I haven't the strength to return to bed. I sink to the floor, wincing a little at the soreness between my legs. Was I really stupid enough, at my age, to imagine fucking a handsome young man would prove I was ready to resume my place in the world? Stupid, stupid woman. I hit my forehead with the heel of my palm.

"Mom?"

There's a gentle tap on the wall outside the bathroom door. It's a sweet gesture of respect and privacy. I wonder how much my unexpectedly powerful youngest was able to read of my anguish. She had come terribly close to breaching my best defenses, despite the fact I was ready for the attempt, earlier in the summer.

"I'm fine, Donna. I just need a few minutes."

"Come out mother, please," Her voice is a whisper that I can't be sure I heard with my ears. I squeeze my eyes, as if that would hold her at bay.

"Stop that, mom," I hear tears in her voice. "I'm not trying to see or share anything you don't want to share. Don't you know that?"

I shake my head and hit myself in the forehead again. Of course I know that. I pull myself up, run the cold water and splash my face before squaring my shoulders and joining my daughter.

"I know, without prying, that you aren't okay so I'll skip asking you that," Donna says carefully, leaning against the wall and staring at me with open eyes. I'm struck anew at how much alike we looked. The boys are spitting images of their father but no one would mistake anyone for Donna's mother except me.

I hold my hand out and she steps away from the wall and takes my hand. I lead her toward the bed.

"Lay down with me, daughter. I'm tired."

She lays down and climb in behind her. I press my body close to hers, draping one arm across her waist. I can smell the shampoo in her hair as I allow the bubble I kept wrapped around me to swell and bring my daughter within its walls. We lay quietly, talking without speaking, and I share my fears and anger and sorrow. It's a shitty thing to do, burden my child with the tumult inside my soul but in time we sleep and do not dream.

----

Gary and I rouse ourselves as Donna rises and hurries down the hall, looking worried. Gary's face mirrors what I feel, confusion and a bit of shame mixed with the most intense post-orgasmic buzz I'd ever felt. I wasn't ready yet to think too closely about where that buzz comes from. The eternally vigilant, self-loathing prick I kept buried in my brain screams at me. "Your mother, you fucking freak. You were inside a dude's head while he fucked your mother. You've been a cock sucker for a lot of years, then a sister fucker and now a mother fucker, literally."

"No, not literally," Gary says to me, sharply. "You're wrong about that part."

"Really?" I snap. "What's that puddle on the couch and floor? What's hanging off the head of your dick and mine? Cum. Jizz. Spooey. Where did it come from, Gary? Huh? We came, not later when Mark was fucking Julie, before that. We came while we went along for the ride while he fucked our mother. You think the fact we didn't actually have our cocks in her cunt makes a fucking bit of difference? Spare me that bullshit rationalization. Christ, sometimes I fucking want to punch you in the face."

"Go ahead," he says mildly, "if it will make you feel better."

We read each other very, very well, but it isn't perfect. I don't think he expected me to take him up on the offer. If he did, he made no effort to dodge or block the punch. As I turn to stomp out of the cabin, blood begins to run down his chin from the split lip.

As he touches his tongue to the split, I taste blood in my own mouth.