Fran's Escape

A new day, a new dawn. A new Fran.

I was determined to make something better out of this day, starting by going to the bathroom, and cleaning off the makeup that had smeared all over my face. Leonard still slept, although he did find his way under the blankets at some point. For all I could care, he might as well sleep for the rest of his life. I put on a bikini, and pulled some shorts and a t-shirt over it.

In the lobby, a different—and in my opinion much less prettier—girl occupied the front desk.

"Good morning, ma'am. My name is Tanya, how may I be of service to you today?"

"Is every girl here named Tanya?" I couldn't help myself.

"No, ma'am," she answered, confused.

"Nevermind. Could you point me towards breakfast?"

"The buffet isn't open for another ten minutes, ma'am, but you're welcome to sit down already and enjoy some coffee or tea in the meantime. It's right over there." She pointed at a large set of open doors.

As soon as I sat down, a young man appeared at my side.

"Can I get you anything to drink, ma'am."

"Some coffee, please. Half coffee, half milk."

"Right away."

I watched a slow but steady stream of people trickle in. The server brought me my coffee, and once the buffet opened, I ate some toast with jam. Sitting down here—in broad daylight—with dozens of people surrounding me, the world felt much different. None of that doom and gloom from last night.

When I got back to the room, Leonard stepped out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist.

"Morning, sugar. Wanna get some breakfast?" He sounded cheery, completely unaware of my own feelings.

"I already ate."

"Oh, you must have woken up early."

"Sure did," I replied. Two points to Sherlock Evans.

"Well, I'm starving. Do you want to come to the fishing tournament and watch, or something? Starts in two hours."

"No thanks, I'm good here." He didn't look particularly disappointed upon hearing that.

He changed into some clothes, and headed out. I was alone again, with nothing to do at all. Right then, I preferred the solitude to having Leonard around.

I grabbed a printed map of the local area from the stack of pamphlets, and set out. Some nice, fresh air would do me good. Trout Lake turned out to be pretty big in the daylight. I could just make out the other side, but no details. I followed the trail that led along its shore. The hotel had its own boat dock, and a few boats—small yachts, really—were already out on the lake.

Despite how early in the day it was, I encountered a number of joggers along the path. For the next couple of hours, I just kept walking, without a real goal in mind. I just wanted to get away from it all, and enjoy the solitude. Maybe if I walked long enough, all my worries would disappear behind me, and I'd be free.

I sure had plenty of time to think about how I got myself in my current predicament.

I suppose it all started many, many years ago, when I was still a sophomore in highschool. I fell in love with Leonard, the new transfer student, the moment I saw him. He was tall, athletic, and handsome. I joined the cheerleading squad, just to be closer to him, and I was determined to get his attention. Aided by the rest of the cheerleading squad, word got around that I was interested in him, and he asked me out on a date. After only three dates, I invited him to my home to meet my folks, who, as fortune would have it, took a liking to him.

Things heated up quickly, and by the end of the year I lost my virginity to him. He graduated, and started working in his old man's auto shop. We kept seeing each other, and for a long time everything was simply perfect.

Our first real surprise came a month after my eighteenth birthday. I was two weeks late, and, on a hunch, took a pregnancy test. One of the cheap ones, from the corner store. The lady gave me a nasty glare, but she sold it to me anyway. Leonard always pulled out, and finished on my stomach—which I now know doesn't always work—so those two stripes were a real shock for the both of us. But my folks liked him well enough, and his folks were overjoyed, so we decided to go through with it.

Leonard asked for my hand in holy matrimony three days later, after he squared it away with my old man. That was just how things were done around these parts. A month passed, and we had a beautiful wedding. Not the one I always pictured, but I couldn't complain. I became Mrs. Francine Evans, and all my friends at school were real jealous. I had to quit the cheerleading squad, though, once I got too fat to jump around. I think that was my only regret. Halfway through my senior year, God blessed me with my beautiful baby boy Tyler. His eyes were brown, just like his father's.

After the birth, I dropped out of highschool. Dad didn't like that one bit, but Ma convinced him to support my choice, for which I'm incredibly grateful. Leonard had worked his way a few rungs up the ladder, and was making enough for the three of us. I moved in with him and his folks, and it was bliss.

A year and a half later, I got pregnant again. Planned, that time. Leonard was thrilled at the news, and I pictured myself living the american dream. A beautiful husband, a healthy boy, and I was secretly hoping the next would be a girl. All that was missing was the white picket fence. And a dog. You always had to have a dog.

I was three months into the pregnancy, when Leonard's folks died in a car crash on the way home from work. Leonard was devastated, and rightly so. His folks had been nothing but kind to the both of us, and I'd miss them dearly, but we pulled through together. He inherited his old man's business, and the house. My secret wish came true, and I gave birth to a healthy girl. We called her Lisa, in honor of his late mother.

We decided that two was enough, and I went on the pill. It was just as well, since Ty and Lisa kept me busy from sunrise til sunset. Time flew by quickly. There was always one thing or another to do. We got comfortable in our routine, and things were smooth until four years later, when I got pregnant again. I guess I must have forgotten to take a pill, or it was a freak accident, or maybe even His divine will. No matter what went wrong, we were determined to do the right thing. Neither of us ever brought up the A-word.

I'd like to tell you everything turned out alright, and I lived happily ever after, but life isn't always kind. There were "complications" during the birth, as the doctors liked to call it, and the child never tooks its first breath on this green earth.

I was devastated, and Leonard took to the bottle. They say most marriages don't survive the death of a child, but somehow we pulled through. For Ty's and Lisa's sake, more than our own. Ever since then, Leonard's been hesitant to make love to me. I thought at first it was the loss that was eating away at him, but after our lovemaking got scarcer, and I got grew more frustrated, I confronted him head on. I suffered some tearing during the disastrous delivery, and even though over time it healed up nicely, Leonard claimed he was turned off. The words he used were "disgusted by my sex."

Now, that's just about the worst thing a woman can hear, and I cried endlessly for weeks. I blamed myself, I blamed the child, but I was still in love with Leonard, and somehow never blamed him.

Ty and Lisa grew up, and I poured all my affection on them. Ty, to my great delight, was a momma's boy, and he loved hanging out with me. Lisa took after Leonard, but we were still close as mother and daughter can be. They passed through elementary and middle school with flying colors. I took the kids to the zoo, the circus, the museums, the pictures, you name it, and was proud of myself taking them to see the sights, unlike some of the other moms I knew.

Ty was always a pleasure, but Lisa and I struggled occasionally. Especially in her teenage years. At sixteen, Lisa interned at Leonard's auto shop, and most days it was just Ty and me, though he spent most of that time on the computer. We gave him more or less free reign in that aspect.

Leonard and I still occasionally did "it," but mostly for special occasions, like birthdays and Valentine's. We'd lost the fire that used to burn between the two us, and I always dreamed about getting it back, but it never happened. We just went our own way, mostly, and hardly saw each other for days at a time. Almost like living with a roommate instead of a husband. He spent most of his free time fishing, or going out drinking with "the guys." That was always his go-to excuse, whenever he didn't want to do something. Fishing. Sometimes he didn't even go anywhere. It was just his way of saying "no, Fran, I don't want to spend time with you." Divorce never came up, and (speaking mainly for myself) we never even considered it. That's just how things were done around here, and my folks would never have forgiven me for it.

To be honest, at times I felt like I was trapped in our marriage. I knew the bars were there, but I couldn't quite see them, and couldn't even begin to imagine how to unlock them. When I wasn't busy with housework, I read a lot. My favorite books were the ones where a daring, brave, young heroine escaped her miserable situation to go on a grand adventure. They made me feel good, like there was still hope for me, that one day I, too, could be free.

I first found out that Ty was interested in me—more than a son is supposed to—during one of the hottest summers on record. Not nearly as hot as the one we had now, but still plenty. I had grown accustomed to baking under the afternoon sun topless, and never thought twice about it. I definitely wasn't one of those free spirited hippie types, but we were family, and my Ma had raised me to believe that family meant closeness, without secrets or shame. That, and the fence on our backyard was pretty dang tall.

On a particularly scorching day, I dozed off, and woke up to the sound of a shutter going off. I whirled around, and Ty was standing there, cellphone in hand—the one we'd given him for his eighteenth birthday—caught like a deer in headlights, a big bulge between his legs.

"Ty, what the fuck?" I'm not usually the swearing type, but I was irate.

Without so much as a peep, he bolted into the house, and up the stairs. I stomped after him, and in retrospect, I should have put on a top, but my head had been clouded by rage. I threw open the door, and Ty was just standing there, frozen. His eyes nearly popped out of their sockets at the sight of my tits dangling freely.

"Explain yourself," I rounded on him.

"Ma, I—"

"Were you taking pictures of me?"

"No! I wasn't, I swear!" His entire face flushed red as a strawberry, and his hands failed to cover up the tent in his pants.

"Hand over the phone. Now," I commanded, and he reluctantly handed it over. I scrolled through the pictures. The first one was me, topless by the pool. There was no mistaking his intention, he'd zoomed in really far, and I couldn't believe how detailed the shot of my tits was. I thumbed through the other pictures in the album, and almost fainted. There were dozens of snaps, most of them of me sunbathing. Others showed me bent over, while I was cleaning, or napping on the couch. Some were as old as a year.

"I can explain," he said meekly.

"Ty, what you're doing is wrong, I'm your mother."

"But—"

"No buts! Just you wait until your father hears about this."

I stormed out, and left Ty standing there, mouth hanging open. After Leonard came home that night, I showed him the phone—and the pictures. He was furious, and to make a long story short, we had the biggest family shouting match in the history of the Evans family. Ty lost his phone privileges, and, to nobody's surprise, was grounded for the rest of senior year. He stayed in his room a lot, and only came out to eat, and go to school.

As they tend to do, things eventually returned to normal. Ty could look at me again without going red, and Leonard eventually returned the phone. Minus the pics, of course. Only Lisa kept taunting him about being a momma's boy, though as far as I'm aware, never took the matter outside of our home. That's just not what family does.

I thought things were over by the time we shipped Ty off to college, and it sure seemed that way. We didn't have the money for a good school, so he went to the state college in the nearby city. He was the first in our family to go, and we were massively proud of him. At first he'd stop by frequently on the weekends, saying he misses us, but he settled in soon enough. Of course, he came back home on the holidays, and during the long breaks.

Lisa started working full time at the auto shop after graduation, and never showed an inkling of wanting to do anything else. She met a guy at work, a young mechanic who seemed pleasant enough, and they moved in together. That was fine by me, though now the house was dreadfully empty most of the time. My marital love life had never recovered, and I spent many a day cooped up at home, frustrated—and insanely horny—and only myself to fuck.

I grew sick and tired of my miserable life. When I stood at the altar, and said "I do" to Leonard so many years ago, I never could have imagined things would turn out this way. Of course, nobody tells you about all the things that can go wrong—not that I would have listened.

What I regretted the most was never finishing high school, and so, grabbing the bull by the horns, I went back and got my GED. It wasn't much, but it helped me land a job at my cousin Mary's real estate firm. She took a real chance with me, and I'm forever indebted to her.

It was around that time I noticed the signs, the ones that every wife knows, deep down inside of her. Leonard came home later every day, and fed me stories about big orders coming in, or sudden fishing trips. I asked Lisa, but she never knew of any such things, and didn't even know her dad was staying late. Some days, when he came home late, he went straight into the shower, as if he didn't want me to smell anything incriminating on him. I had no real evidence though, just hunches, and feelings. After one of our rare love making sessions, lying naked in bed, I asked him straight up.

"Lenny, I may be wrong here, and I pray to God I am, but lately I've been having the crazy idea that you're seeing another woman."

He snorted—actually snorted! "That's nonsense, Fran. Who told you that? Did Cindy tell you that?" Cindy was my best friend in the whole world, the only person from high school I still kept in touch with. It was true that she never liked Leonard much, and always told me he was cheating on me, but only after I told her about all my suspicions in the first place.

"No, nobody said anything. So you're not?"

"Of course not. You've got nothing to worry about, babe."

Despite his assurances, I couldn't shake my feelings. I saw the way he looked, just for a brief moment, after I confronted him. Like a boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I knew, then. I just knew.

One time, Cindy encouraged me to cheat on him, sort of as payback, and I couldn't think of a good reason to say no. We got raging drunk at a cheap dive, and she picked out a random guy for me. He was kinda hot, and I was craving to get properly laid again, so under the influence, it seemed like a good idea. He took me to a seedy motel, not far from the bar. We kissed, and I was in the process of taking off my clothes, when I was hit by an enormous wave of shame. I was terribly afraid that if I pulled down my panties, he'd have the same look of disgust on his face that I'd seen on Leonard.

With tears streaming down my face, I bailed out of there, unable to go through with it. All the years with Leonard had left me feeling thoroughly ashamed of my body. I never tried again, until the thing with Ty developed.

A few weeks ago, Ty was on summer break, and Leonard was at the shop. I was, just like yesterday, lying by the pool, sizzling under the hot afternoon sun. I felt like I had deserved it, after a hard day of open houses. I hadn't been outside topless since I had caught Tyler doing his thing. I had asked him to bring me an ice cold pop out of the fridge, and as he stood on the patio, can in hand, I was reminded of that very day.

Then, I had been horrified, but I considered it in a different light. He'd been taking pictures of my breasts, and seemed to enjoy looking at my body. The same body I felt so disgusted by, and thought—after years of disdain from Leonard—nobody could think of as sexy.

"Ty," I asked, "remember that day I caught you doing you-know-what?"

"Uh," he stammered, "I suppose so."

"Why'd you do it?"

He thought about for a minute or so, then said, "'cause I thought you were hot."

"Were? But not anymore?"

He hesitated. "No, still."

"Even though I'm your mother?"

"Yeah, Ma. You're the sexiest woman I know."

I was struck speechless! Not even in my wildest dreams could I have imagined to hear those words actually coming out of his mouth. To hear him speak so plainly made me feel good, in a way no mother should feel about her child. I felt so thoroughly unwanted and broken all these years, the sudden affection was like a lifeline. I clung to it, even though I knew I wasn't supposed to.

When I didn't say for a long time, he handed me the coke, and disappeared back in the house. Leonard came home, and we ate dinner. The three of us together. Tyler kept furtively glancing, first at me, then at his dad, but he came to the conclusion I hadn't told Leonard anything about what he said earlier, and relaxed. I dreamed that night of a young, faceless stud ravishing me, and woke up drenched in sweat, my loins aching with desire.

My head was reeling from the dream, as well the exchange with my son. I was conflicted. I loved Ty, of course, as much as a mother can love a son, but that was one thing. Getting wet, lying in bed next to my husband, was quite another. Quietly, I slipped a finger into myself, and brought myself to a nice, warm orgasm.

Afterwards, I felt guilty as all hell, but I couldn't shake the thought of my sweet boy, looking at me with the kind of desire I hadn't seen in another man's eyes in years. I was desperately longing for a man's affection. Any man's, really, I supposed.

Which, one thing after another, led to me walking along the path next to Trout Lake, alone.

All that walking (and daydreaming), made me hungry, and I stopped for lunch at a small diner. According to the map, I had made it about a quarter of the way around the lake.

After a pretty good meal, I decided to keep going. I had nothing better to do, and the last thing I wanted was to return to the Trout Lake Deluxe—and my husband. The shade of trees protected me from the worst of the hot sun, but I stopped several times to re-apply sunblock.

By the afternoon, my muscles started complaining, and my feet started to hurt. The map showed a small town on the opposite side of the lake to the hotel. It turned out to be less a town, and more of a long street with a bunch of buildings. The sun had already dropped below the horizon, when I set foot in it.

"What's the best way to get to the Trout Lake Deluxe from here?" I asked the first person I met, a man in his late sixties, who was all skin and bones.

"Just head back towards the highway, and take the next exit."

"No, I'm here on foot," I clarified.

"On foot? Are you lost? The Deluxe is twenty miles away, at least. How did you end up here?"

"It's a long story."

"Hmmm, I suppose the best way to get back would be to take the ferry over the lake. There's one every six hours, starting at eight, but you missed the last one for the day."

I smiled to myself. It all felt kind of like a grand adventure. Stuck out in the middle of nowhere, miles away from home, trying to fend for myself. I thanked the man, and found a restaurant that was open. Well, calling it a restaurant might be giving it too much credit. They served freshly caught, local seafood, and I wondered what Leonard was doing. Maybe I was eating some of the fish he'd caught. There weren't any messages or missed calls on my phone, so he couldn't have been too concerned.