Joseph’s Birthday Present

"You've been a great help to us both, Peggy," Daniel said, and he patted my leg affectionately, sending waves of pleasure through my body. "I can never thank you enough."

Oh yes you can, I thought as I turned to look in his smiling eyes. It took every ounce of resolve I had not to kiss him then and there, and I had every sense that I'd have been welcome to do so. But that would have made our plans for Joseph's birthday awfully awkward. That would just have to wait for the time being, I resolved. But I did give his hand an affectionate squeeze as I said, "I'm just glad I could be of help to the both of you, Daniel."

There was, of course, a whole lot more I wanted to tell him. But the ceremony was due to start any moment by then, and we spent it in companionable silence as we watched Joseph shuffle across the stage into adulthood. Then it was out into the hallway where an epic traffic jam of graduates said their fond goodbyes while their parents waited on the sidelines. Joseph, when we found him, was his usual formal self, shaking hands with the boys and girls alike and looking content with that.

I, of course, was having nothing of it. I threw myself at him when he spotted us, and was delighted that he hugged me back. "Joseph! Congratulations. You look so handsome in that gown!"

"Thank you, Peggy," he said, smiling at the floor. "I feel really pretentious, to tell you the truth, but thanks."

"Pretentious? It's perfectly fine to be a bit showy on a day like this!" I said. "Wouldn't you agree, Daniel?"

"Completely. Congratulations, son, we're very proud of you."

Joseph didn't seem to know what to say to that, so I spoke up. "Say, why don't we all go out for dinner to celebrate? My treat!"

Daniel looked almost heartbroken in reply. "Oh, Peggy, I wish we could, but..." He looked at Joseph uncertainly.

"It's okay, Dad, it's Peggy. We can trust her." My heart flipped at that, although I was more than a bit disappointed. Joseph continued, "My mother wants to see me, and she's only allowed supervised visits until I'm eighteen, so Dad has to be there too. Believe me, I'd much rather spend it with you!"

"Enough of that, Joseph," Daniel said. "She is your mother, in spite of everything."

"Yeah, exactly," Joseph grumbled.

"Well, how about this?" Daniel asked, clearly wanting to change the subject. "Joseph has the all-night grad party tonight, but we could all have brunch tomorrow. Say, eleven o'clock?"

"It's a date." And I smiled through my sympathy for them both.

It's okay, Dad, it's Peggy. We can trust her. The memory of those lovely words, poignant and thrilling at once now that I knew about Joseph's mother, had my heart flying high all through that afternoon and evening. The memory of Daniel's kind words before the ceremony and his wonderful touch on my leg had my libido flying even higher. Feeling too wound up to just go home, I went out for dinner on my own and lingered over my dessert wine until well after dark. Throughout the meal and the drink and the walk home, Daniel and Joseph danced in my head, one or another or sometimes both, sometimes with me. With my imagination and my anticipation running wild, I was wet as a leaky faucet when I finally arrived at home, and I lost no time in tearing off my clothes and flopping down on my bed with my vibrator at the ready.

I may be a dirty old lady, but I'm also an ethical one. So I envisioned the end of the summer, maybe the night before Joseph left for Amherst -- in other words, well past his birthday. I even insisted on spotting the August calendar on the bedroom wall before my omniscient-for-now view made its way into a spacious bathroom.

As I teased my vulva with the first playful strokes of my wand, I saw an open window that looked out on a beautiful summer coastline. But the view was fuzzy with steam from the opulent marble shower on the left, where two showerheads sprayed hard and fast onto Daniel and Joseph, who were both stark naked and utterly comfortable as they washed and chatted.

They were both magnificent, of course. Daniel more weatherbeaten and a bit paunchy, but with the unmistakable aura of maturity and success, his chest broad and sprinkled with virile dark hair; Joseph nubile and shiny-skinned, thin and spry. Both their penises were thick and majestic, each sprouting unapologetically from a garden of curls that was darker and thicker in Joseph's case but still wonderfully lush in Daniel's. Hot water dripped tantalizingly in an imperfect rhythm from the tip of each masculine treasure as I looked back and forth between them, while their balls provided a lovely backdrop just behind.

"Onhhhhhh!" I yelped out loud, squeezing my eyes shut and circling my toy around my clit, never getting too close as I wanted to savor this beautiful view.

"Do all vaginas feel as wonderful as hers, Dad?"

"They're not all created equal, Joseph, and not all women are as skilled as she is. It's got a lot to do with how well she knows to use it."

"That's such a shame!" Joseph wrapped his now-hard cock in his right hand. "To think they won't all feel as beautiful as she did, enveloping me like that. It was magical!"

"Magical is a good word for her all right." Now Daniel was following his son's lead, and in no time they were jacking off in rhythm. I was now applying the same rhythm to my own strokes, and wishing I'd turned on the radio as I was certain my moaning was loud enough for the neighbors to overhear. But that wasn't going to stop me! I put that thought from my mind as I imagined Daniel continuing: "But don't feel sorry for yourself, son, just because your first time was so beautiful. You know how few people can say that?"

"I know! It's just that...gosh, now that I've tasted that fruit, you know!"

"Now that I've been with her as well, I do understand, son. But I'm glad we've got the experience to share. And we'll both always have the memory of her!"

'She,' of course, was me. And I chose that moment to mosey into the bathroom, just as joyfully nude as they were, to join them in the shower. "Oh, guys!" called out Imaginary Peggy as she saw what they were up to. Standing hands-on-hips just outside the shower, giving them a good long look at her breasts and curves and bush, she declared, "Wouldn't you rather let me do that for both of you?!"

"Have at, Peggy," said Daniel.

"Please do," said Joseph at the same time.

Imaginary Peggy -- I resisted the temptation to make her any thinner than I really am or to have her breasts sag less than mine really do without a bra -- stepped into the steamy spray and eagerly took Daniel firmly in her left hand and Joseph in her right, and picked up where they had left off on rubbing them hard and fast into a tizzy. "Don't forget about me, boys!" she reminded them before they got too lost in sensation, and she was promptly rewarded with Joseph's fingers frolicking in her triangle while Daniel massaged both her breasts most eagerly.

"Ooooooohhhhhhhh...unh! Onh!" As my strokes grew firmer and harder, I found it easier by the second to imagine it was Joseph's nimble fingers teasing my clit instead of my vibrator. "Oh, guys, do it!"

"You too, Peggy!" "Feels amazing! Faster!"

In real life and in the shower, my breathing grew faster and heavier along with my hands. Father and son at my playful mercy, one in each of my fists, Daniel's experienced gentle hands caressing my breasts, Joseph's eager young fingers in my vagina, the splash of their come on the glass shower door one after another, so close together I couldn't even tell which was which as I savored their eyes and their hands on me and in me...

"OOOOOUUUUUUUUWWWWWWWWW!"

I caught my breath and dropped my vibrator between my thighs, where its humming still made its presence very much known, and I was quite sure the room was spinning when I opened my eyes.

"I got up around eight-thirty and he was on his bed," Daniel told me late the next morning as he served me a mimosa at his dining room table. "Not in his bed, but on it, still in his designer shirt and khakis."

"He even dressed up for the grad party?" I asked. "Isn't it the whole idea to cut loose? I hope he at least went swimming!" The local country club sponsored a grad party every year, complete with use of their Olympic-sized pool, to keep the kids from throwing unsupervised beer-blasts.

"I told him to bring his trunks and a towel," Daniel replied from the kitchen, where I could only just see him busying himself with a tossed salad. "No idea if he did, though."

"I hope so," I said, shamelessly imagining Joseph dressed only in his trunks. Then, in a panic that Daniel might guess why I'd said that, I stood up. "Let me help you with that, please, Daniel."

"Oh, I owe you this much after what you've agreed to do, Peggy!"

"Don't be silly," I began. Then I stopped abruptly as I heard steps out in the living room.

"What's she agreed to do, Dad?" Joseph stumbled in, still in last night's now very rumpled party clothes. "Sorry I'm late."

"Oh, nothing you need to worry about," Daniel said with a smile. Unflappable as always, that was one of the first things I'd noticed him back when he was the new boss. "You've got a few minutes before brunch'll be ready. Go take a shower and put on something you haven't slept in!"

"Sorry! That was close!" I whispered as soon as Joseph had followed his father's directive.

"Peggy, if you were a mother, you'd have learned a long time ago you can always shut up a nosy kid with the right tone," Daniel replied with a grin. "Now, I mean it, go enjoy your drink and let me take care of this!"

"That tone?" I asked. Suspecting it was, I did return to my seat.

"Precisely," Daniel said. And I was left alone at the table to sip my mimosa and admire the late June morning floating by in the breeze outside.

Daniel was just finishing up with a lovely spread of salad, cold cuts, French toast and poached eggs -- and still stubbornly refusing my help -- when Joseph appeared. His outfit of shorts and a polo shirt was the most casual thing I'd seen him wearing in years, but both the shorts and the shirt looked like he'd ironed them. "Looks great, Dad," he said, taking his seat around the corner of the table from me. I couldn't help but steal a look at him from head to toe just before his lower half disappeared beneath the table, and wonder how accurate my imagination was.

"Dig in," Daniel told him. "How was the party?"

"Kind of depressing," Joseph said, helping himself to an egg.

"Depressing?" I said. "Joseph, you're out of high school! That's worth celebrating!"

"Yeah, you're right, I know," he said. "But...I don't know, sitting around a poolside in the middle of the night, or a mock blackjack table gambling for nothing -- it's not what I always imagined from way back. Not the rite of passage it should be. I always imagined a party with all my friends would end in, you know, fireworks."

Daniel laughed. "Joseph, there's no such thing as fireworks, at least not the sort you're imagining."

"Your father's right," I added, though I couldn't help but recall what I'd felt in bed the night before. "That's never anything like what you think it's going to be, especially at your age."

"I guess," Joseph said. "It's just...I don't know. It just felt like I was there because everyone was there, and all the time I'm thinking...yeah, this is awfully anticlimactic! I was ready for high school to be done long ago anyway. Speaking of which, I ought to start looking for a summer job today. I mean, what else am I going to do with my time now?"

"We've been meaning to talk to you about that, Joseph," Daniel said. "I've asked Peggy to take you on for the summer, at the office. You know the work well enough, and you can start tomorrow if you just have to pretend you hate vacations that much, son."

I was expecting more teenage angst, or at least a remark that he'd already spent too much time in that place. But he surprised me with an approving nod. "Oh, okay. Sure, Peggy, I'd be glad to work for you. I hear you're a wonderful boss."

"You hear from whom?" I quipped. "My old boss?"

"Well, I have a lot of respect for him even if he is an old square," Joseph said, his lips curling into a mischievous grin I hadn't seen from him in years.

"Gee, thanks," Daniel laughed. "But good attitude, son. You really don't have to start immediately if you'd like some time off, you know."

"Dad, I told you, I've been ready for school to be over with forever. The sooner I can start living like an adult, the better."

Daniel and I exchanged amused looks, and then he continued. "Okay, Joseph, you can start tomorrow if you want -- if that's okay with you, Peggy?"

"I'd be delighted," I said.

"Great, it's settled," Daniel said. "Now then, the party. So you did go swimming?"

"Well, a little bit," Joseph said. "I have to admit -- sorry, Peggy -- I was mostly there to admire the girls in their bikinis."

I laughed. "That's perfectly fine, Joseph. Do you think we don't check you guys out too?"

"You do?" The poor dear was genuinely surprised! Even now, I found it easy to forget just how young he was.

In keeping with the positive change Daniel had made at the office and which I was determined to keep up, I had promoted two younger women to the management to balance off Old Man Grotton and his minions. Hayley and Linda had been around the office long enough to have met Joseph a time or two, but they didn't know him like I did.

So I wasn't too surprised at their reaction when I announced he'd be joining us for the summer. "Isn't he too young?" Hayley asked. "Thirteen or fourteen, isn't he?"

"Eighteen in a few weeks," I corrected. "And mature for his age." Was I trying to convince her, or myself?

Linda, for one, was delighted. "That's wonderful! He'll do a great job here, I'm sure," she said. "Just for the summer, I take it?"

"Yes, he's off to Massachusetts for college in the fall," I explained.

"Good for him, then," Hayley said. "He's just the right age for a change of scene like that. Only one thing, Peggy..." Hayley's face curled into a wry show of concern, and I knew just what she was going to ask about. "Can I trust he will not be like Grotton and his gang?"

"He is Daniel's son," I said. "What do you think?"

"I think I'm skeptical about an eighteen year old boy knowing any better," Hayley said.

"Knowing better than what?" came a voice I knew and she didn't. I was amused and she was embarrassed to see Joseph standing in the doorway in a new pinstripe suit, which I happened to know Daniel had just bought him as a graduation gift.

"Yes, Hayley, what exactly?" needled Linda.

"Oh, that was mean, Peggy," Hayley told me. Then she turned to have another look at Joseph, who was looking dapper as ever in his new suit. "Welcome to the team, Joseph," she said, clearly enjoying the view just as much as I was. "I hope you learn a lot this summer."

"So do I," Joseph said with a polite nod. "Sorry, Peggy, I just got in and the receptionist said you'd be expecting me."

"So I was," I said. "I just hadn't gotten a chance to tell Hayley and Linda you were coming in today. I'm sure they're just as thrilled to have you aboard as I am, though."

"Is that empty desk outside your office mine?"

"Yes, why don't you go get settled there now?" I said. "I'll be right with you."

"Well, he's certainly grown up!" Linda exclaimed as soon as he'd left.

"Peggy, I wish you'd told me he was coming in right away!" Hayley whined. "Then I wouldn't have said..."

"I hope he doesn't get too hot in that suit," I said, opting to ignore Hayley. Most of the men in the office stuck to shirtsleeves for the summer.

"No doubt you'll be happy to help him out of it if he does," Hayley grumbled.

"None of that!" I snapped.

And from that moment on, there wasn't. Despite the awkward beginning, Hayley and (less surprisingly) Linda took to him just fine, and by the end of the week Joseph was doing a great job with the project I'd assigned. More importantly to me, neither of the girls suspected anything. They both doted on him a bit at first, but his professional-beyond-his-years demeanor put a stop to that just as much as it did to Hayley's reservations about him. As for me, I was happy just to have the occasional one-on-one in my office where I could admire him across my desk without any suspicion as yet, since his father hadn't told him of the offer.

It was the Tuesday before his birthday when Daniel did spill the beans. Or at least it was that morning that I learned as much, via a text message from Daniel just as I was leaving for work. Of course the news gave me a naughty thrill and a sense of nervousness as I set off for the office, but once again I reminded myself the poor dear had every right to say no.

But then, I realized, wasn't that what I was afraid of?

I would remain afraid through most of the morning, as it turned out. Joseph was already there when I arrived. He was conferring with Linda on a project when I arrived, and he returned my friendly hello but quickly turned back to her, with a shy smile I'd rarely seen on his ever-so-confident face before.

"Good morning," I ventured.

Linda replied with a pleasant "Morning, Peggy," but Joseph gave me only the most fleeting of looks as he mumbled his reply.

I tamped down my own qualms about it all and went ahead with my day, hoping to get a word with him when the time was right. But by ten o'clock or so, I could see the time wasn't right for him: he always found some excuse to run off to do something else when I came anywhere near him. Always a cordial smile and then he'd look away and busy himself with something else. I wasn't willing to let things hang like this past lunchtime. When I overheard him tell Hayley he was going to the file room, I waited a minute or so and then headed there myself.

He was in the open case stacks, and -- perhaps guessing it was me? -- he didn't look up when I stepped up behind him. "Joseph," I said in the sweetest tone I could muster.

This time he had no escape, and he looked at me and let out a nervous laugh. "Peggy! Hey, listen..."

"Allow me first, Joseph," I said. "You're perfectly welcome to say no with no hard feelings on my part, and I'm sorry if your father and I have made you uncomfortable. He just really does want your first time to be pleasant. His was not -- neither was mine, by the way -- and no one wants their kids to live with the same bad experiences they did."

Joseph's confidence was almost back on his face -- almost, but I could see he was flustered just beneath it. "He told you about my mom, I guess."

"A little bit. We don't have to talk about that if you don't want to."

"Thanks. But I mean, you know. You know why I haven't even really tried dating."

"No one blames you for that, Joseph. It makes perfect sense to me that you wouldn't know how to relate to women, and your father and I thought maybe I could help with that. But if you don't want to do it, that's entirely up to you!"

"Well, no, Peggy, that's not it! I..." For once he couldn't make eye contact or keep a straight face. "I...I do want to."

"Are you sure?" I forced myself to show no sign of the joy and relief I felt inside at those four words.

A silent grin, and then, "Yes! Honestly, Peggy, I've always kind of wanted to. I never would have told you that, of course, but for years, every time you've come over for dinner or something, well, you know." He finally was able to look me in the eye, but he burst into more laughter.

I joined in on the laughs, and was very tempted to tell him what I'd been imagining lately in my bed. But that could wait. Seeing the ice appeared to be broken, I put my arms around him. "That's sweet, Joseph. I'm very flattered. And I'm looking forward to the weekend!"