Straight Shooter

Straight Shooter

I hope I marry a girl like dear old mom

My father always told me, Say what you mean and mean what you say. It served him well in life and business. So I knew he wasn't kidding on that sere December day as we followed the meandering stream of Gap Run back from checking out a kitchen that we were pricing, when he looked at me seriously, his big-knuckled hands on the wheel, and said, "Grant, your mother wants the three of us to have sex together."

You'd be right if you think I was surprised. But I didn't jump out of the truck and run screaming either.

He let me sit with the idea. I watched the fallow, tan hayfields drift past under a low, gun-metal sky pregnant with snow, and listened to my heart beat fast in my ears.

It's not that the idea was totally alien. I was a healthy twenty-year-old only child who'd lived on a farm with his parents all his life, still deciding on college or not. They'd had me when dad was twenty-six and mom seventeen, and they'd grown up quick when dad's parents died two years later, leaving him the farm, the building business and a young family. As a pair they were beautifully matched in temperament and values. They looked like clothing models for Orvis - outdoorsy, lean, sun-bleached and smiling. Dad and mom were pragmatic, get-things-done kind of people. Mom had her household domain and dad had veto power over everything. For them, life was clear rules and hard work rewarded with exuberant play.

I had an inch on dad and I'd filled out into a well-muscled man who was sometimes mistaken for his brother. That day the illusion was enhanced as we both wore the informal company uniform - khakis and a dark green collared shirt.

My mother was just five-two, only coming up to my chest, bouncy and ponytailed, a horse-woman who couldn't sit still. If she wasn't mucking the stalls she was baking bread or weeding the garden. Mom was the kind of woman who kept her nails short and didn't waste money on glamor. It truly would be wasted; she had a natural beauty that came from sun, real work, vivacity and confidence. She valued loyalty in friendships and fidelity in love. Cheerfully obedient, mom would do anything my father directed. And he didn't ask anything frivolous of his family. I wondered whose idea this menage-a-trois really was.

Dad changed the subject, "That job's one of those trophy-house projects. The client's a K-Street lobbyist. He'll use it maybe five weekends out of the year and definitely try to nickel and dime us on every line item."

"Another millionaire with no sense?" I was glad to be diverted.

"Well, sense enough to take Mickleson's advice and hire us." he chuckled. We, Robert Brown and Son, were known as bespoke kitchen builders. It's all we did and we did it hands-on and as much in-house as possible. Our waiting list stretched to three years. Being fifth-generation Virginians and living on the family acreage we reeked with the kind of authenticity that the DC crowd couldn't hope to buy. We milled our own moldings and hand-crafted most of the cabinets, we set our own tile, too. Power brokers liked to brag to their buddies about how expensive we were. And then that guy would hire us to one-up him. Dad always said that the real money and power in DC were with the lobbyists, think-tanks, military contractors and political advertisers. The politicians were just empty suits, distracting the marks, the voters, while the real action happened in the mansions of the quietly influential. And we worked for them.

"She told me the other night," dad said matter-of-factly.

"My parents are weird," I sighed. He'd always been a straight shooter with me about anything. He could demonstrate how to gut a deer or outfox a cheating client, explain how to make out with a girl or break up with her. He had said as early as I could remember that their project with me was to raise a strong adult man. My job was to take on responsibility as I grew into it. They'd be there to catch me, coach me, cheer me on. It worked. I think dad's experience losing his parents early was behind it. And I felt pretty much ready to step into his shoes, though youthful arrogance played a part.

My parents knew I wasn't a virgin and my latest girlfriend, Maggie, a buxom redhead, had gone west to school and we'd broken up over Thanksgiving break. There was little we couldn't talk about, but the thought of him and mom inviting me into their sex lives?

"Well, your mom's a firecracker, that's for sure," he grinned. "I'll tell you her reasoning if you're ready to hear it."

"Jeez, let me just absorb the concept for a minute." So, of course I'd noticed my mother's very fine feline body around the farm. Her energy was...let's say, inviting. I knew it wasn't unusual to have sexual fantasies about your mother. And mine was especially sexually charismatic. Dad always watched smugly when he introduced clients to her at parties and they responded to that special animal energy she gave off. Like deer in the headlights at first, then wolfishly, those other men would light up in her presence. He was confident that no amount of money or power would get between him and his wife. He liked showing these posers what they couldn't have. Dangling my mother in front of them was good marketing. She cleaned up well for formal events, carrying off a designer satin gown as well as she did her jeans. The overly-made-up women at these parties looked artificial beside her, fragile; mom was real, unbreakable. She had elegance when it was called for and an earthy, smoldering hunger with dad.

I know that last part because of course I'd often watched them scamper off to their bedroom. Mom liked to tease him anyway and over the years I'd become an innocent bystander to their playful grab-ass foolishness. At times they both could be pretty relaxed about what they wore around the house, especially after they'd been frolicking in their bedroom. Some Sunday mornings I'd find mom in the kitchen making coffee clearly naked under a short robe and dad in just his boxers by the spa. I thought it was because they took my presence for granted. They said they didn't want me to have any hangups about bodies. Adults have sex, mom had said, there's no need to be secretive about it. Maybe mom was thinking of me and my body all along. It made me rethink something that I'd witnessed in June.

I'd been upstairs in my bedroom in the hundred and fifty year old original house, a two-over-two 'carpenter' georgian. Mom and dad were off in their wing out beyond the kitchen which was off-limits to me. I'd gone downstairs for some apple juice about eleven. But I noticed the lights from the spa out on the deck and peeked through the window over the sink. Apparently they hadn't realized that I'd come home instead of staying at Maggie's. The deep, lightless shadow of the Appalachians as backdrop, my mother sat spread-eagled on the edge with dad eyebrow deep in her sex, pushing her knees apart with his big hands. I turned quickly to go, but curiosity got the better of me. I stayed. You'd do the same.

So I watched her writhing under his tongue for a while. In the spa lights she could have been twenty-something, her breasts fresh as pears, her thighs as smooth and gently curved as a polished art nouveau cabinet. Mom put her hand on dad's head and held him there while she yipped out an orgasm. In the kitchen I'd reached in the fly of my pajamas and begun stroking. Maybe it seems pervy to think of wanking to my parents, but at that moment my cock wanted stroking and my hand obliged.

Then dad stood up, his long, dripping boner pointing at mom. He put his hands on his hips confidently. "Take it," he said and she smiled and leaned forward. Mom grasped his shaft and went down on him smoothly. He threw back his head and groaned, like howling at the moon. I stroked my oozing juice along my shaft, imagining the slipperiness of mom's mouth. Watching my petite mother choking down dad's cock filled out a mental image of her that must have been lurking in my unconscious mind. It seemed natural. It looked beautiful. To see two healthy bodies so gracefully giving each other pleasure just clicked in my brain. It wasn't skeevy me, a voyeur of my own parents, but one virile male appreciating a pair of loving people simply and skillfully giving each other pleasure.

They weren't putting on a show for me but I bet they looked that good every time. At that moment I didn't have enough functioning frontal lobe to wonder. I just yanked my crank while mom blew dad in the misty, steaming tub. Her hand whipped up and down his shiny shaft like my hand did on mine. Her head bobbed, she pulled off for the occasional breath, smiling up at dad, then dove on him again. He reached for her ponytail and went all stiff. I did the same there above the sink, my whole body becoming erect as the switch in my prostate flipped and my spunk raced for daylight.

Dad rose on his tiptoes and so did I. He held mom's head firmly but gently on his knob as his hips twitched, his torso flexed, his lips contorted. My explosion drummed into the sink as his filled mom's mouth and bubbly, white froth streamed down over her chin and into the roiling spa.

I wiped the sink with a paper towel and high-tailed it upstairs. That was good stroke fodder all summer. I never happened to see them at it again, but I did drink a lot of midnight juice. By which I mean I went down to the kitchen after bedtime any time I spent the night at home for some apple juice in hopes of a repeat, but I had to be OK with only one thirst satisfied.

That day in the truck, winding our way home past the mostly bare trees, I finally asked, "how long has she been considering this?"

"Oh, I'd guess for a while..." dad said, vaguely. He shifted the old, exquisitely restored '65 Jimmy forcefully into third. The clutch needed adjusting; the Detroit iron could run forever, but it was finicky.

"Do you, uh, have you two, I mean, have you done it with someone else before?"

"Twice. Once about fifteen years ago when we were really wasted, and last Christmas in Tulum." Dad talked about it like he was describing the times he'd gone parasailing. Like it was a fun diversion. I remembered the Tulum vacation. Robert Brown and Son always travel over the holidays, usually somewhere warmer. That's what I mean when I say that our life is hard work rewarded with play. I didn't realize they were 'playing' with some other dude in the hotel room next door.

"I thought that guy was bringing room service....ohhh, he was, wasn't he?" I know I flushed red.

Dad laughed and turned the truck onto our long gravel drive. The rows of deep blue-green cedars guiding us home were soft in the December light. Over us a brief snow squall burst, but at the horizon the clouds parted and a shaft of golden light cut through the swirling flakes. Around the bend our family home waited, glowing in that lowering sun, cradled by the long flank of Brown's mountain. If you follow the horse path uphill from the barn you enter the national forest about half way up. I wondered if my mother would be on her way back red faced from a frigid ride or already in the kitchen with a hot dinner ready to serve. Would she expect dad to have broached the subject? Would she expect me to say yes?

Hanging our waxed barn jackets in the hall, shucking our boots, we found mom in the kitchen. She had the woodstove cranking. Like a 1950's housewife she wore a trim blue skirt and pink blouse under a dark red apron, with low-heeled mary janes, her blond hair bound by a seafoam-green silk scarf. As it happened she served meatloaf from a recipe she'd gotten from a Michelin-starred chef that used our home-grown veal and veggies. I rolled up my sleeves and Dad and I tucked in while mom puttered about, sitting for a few bites, then getting up to fiddle with something, more busy than usual. Seeing the look in dad's eye as he looked over my shoulder at her I guessed that she was nervous...about the obvious. At least, I thought, she must know the gravity of this outrageous proposal...this outrageously enticing and disturbing proposal.

"Amy, sit down and be still for a minute," commanded dad, "let's kill the elephant in the room."

Mom tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, smoothed the skirt under her and sat across from me beside my father. He lay his big, calloused hand over her tiny one. Dad looked her in the eye, "I told him what you want."

She looked up at me with a mix of apprehension and excitement, toyed with her simple pearl necklace, licked her lips and said, "What do you think, Grant?"

I'd learned from dad how important it is when negotiating to let the silence bring out your opposite's true desire to close the deal. So I just looked thoughtfully in her eyes and wondered at what was going on in her mind. I was reluctant to just say OK to the offer. Why me? Wasn't it against the law? Would it feel sick in reality, or would it feel natural like in my fantasies? We'd have to keep it secret, wouldn't we? Once, or how many times? Birth control, or not? Dad had said she wanted us to "have sex together." Did he mean we'd take turns or take her from both ends at once.

The moment the image of mom spit-roasted between us flashed in my mind, I think mom knew I'd agree; she saw my gaze transform from that of a loving and well-behaved son to that of a grown up, horny man. Did she sense that my attitude toward her transformed then too? This wasn't one of those sudden paradigm shifts where the scales fell from my eyes and I suddenly realized that my mother was a 'woman' with womanly needs. No, I'd often thought it was unfair that any boy should be mothered by a woman with such a potent sexual energy. I'd been bathed in her sexuality as long as I could remember. Yes, I'd fantasized and felt awkward about it, frustrated. I just thought she was only for dad. Now I could have her too? I wouldn't be her son so much as she would be my willing sexual partner. Since man naturally leads women it followed that now she'd obey me like she did my father. But would she, really?

I remembered what dad had taught me about being a leader. Grant, he'd said many times, like me you were born with the potential to be an alpha male. Intelligence more than brawn, wealth more than greed, compassion more than dominance are what makes a man an alpha. He'd explained that I'd encounter several kinds of men being formed in high school and that I was virtually destined to be made an alpha by them. That is, my physical prowess, that I wielded with restraint, my intelligence, that I used to benefit all, my confidence and security, that came from my landed and rock-solid family would induce others to cede power to me. There would be those boys who simply understood that I was better than them and would be ready allies, other boys who didn't care for the hard work or challenge and risks of being a leader, who'd always be followers, and two other kinds.

These other two were alike but would act differently. They'd come from poor homes, either poor in material wealth or poor in emotional intelligence or both - sons of drunks or men of low integrity, without the family to teach them to be strong, no matter how large or intelligent they may be. One group of these boys could be made into followers by showing compassion, by becoming a mentor, by being the family they needed. The other group, though small, was the problem. These boys would foolishly challenge my leadership, acting out their poor family dynamics. These are the kind that were bullies if given any power at all. First, I should attempt to mentor them. If not accepted, I should quickly and ruthlessly hurt them so badly they'd never challenge me again.

With alpha status in your domain, dad had explained, you're living out a man's natural territorial imperative. Someone has to lead, to be in control. Make that person Grant Brown.

That's how my years at Reynolds Prep played out, too. I put Don Fleming in the hospital in freshman year; he told everyone he'd fallen off of his tractor. For most of the four years no one else took the risk, though there was the occasional broken finger. The administration appreciated my benevolent leadership and my example. Reynold's baseball team and the entire school's academic performance excelled under my influence.

Dad also advised, you'll be swarmed by the girls, so make a careful choice of your training-wheels women. You want girls who like sex as much as you but won't get all romantic...because it's not going to last. I remember he said that a good woman is like a perfectly broken-in pair of boots. It takes a while, but they end up fitting like a glove, with a soft buttery skin and character wrinkles in the right places. They don't chafe and you can depend on them for a long day's work. They both have a rich, unique smell and look better with age. I do love a good pair of boots, don't you?

He was right about the swarming girls, too. Maggie had offered herself to me like so many had, and I could see she had a hunger that had nothing to do with me in particular. But I was the alpha and she wanted that. She reminded me of my mother in her natural, earthy sexual presence. She was an animal and a fearless one. A soft, warm and juicy vixen. Maggie wasn't a virgin; she walked like her hip joints were lubricated, smiled like she knew my secrets, touched me like she knew where my most sensitive buttons were hidden. Dad had approved. Nice rack, he'd said when I brought her 'round, that's the kind of ride you're looking for.

Maggie and I'd explored each other's bodies and taken each other to the heights of pleasure often over the summer before she left for Stanford. Then, unsurprisingly, when she came back for Thanksgiving we had farewell sex. We'd always been frank about the nature of our relationship. In fact, we'd both supposed that her being in California would be the end of it. Both of us wanted a sex partner, not a romance. Our last time, on our sides, from behind, in her family's pool house, was for old times sake.

Back in our farmhouse kitchen, in the warm, yellow light at the dining table, my mother put her fingers into the hairs on my forearm and my balls clenched. Looking into her inquiring and hopeful blue eyes, I said, "You're dad's partner, not mine." I was thinking of the territorial imperative. The fine smile lines and peach fuzz on her pink cheeks called for my fingertips to caress them. I restrained myself, if barely.

"Grant, since you've become a man...and I mean not just in years, but in your body and your brain...you remind me so much of your father. Anyway, I've been watching the two of you around here with your muscles and your bulges...Oh, I've been so fulfilled by your father's talented body," she looked at him smiling wickedly, "and for a while I've wondered what it would be like to have two bodies like that. Two bodies...two mouths, two tight asses, two cocks, twenty fingers...Ahem, well we tried it last Christmas and I give your dad credit...he wasn't entirely sure... but we both liked it!"

Dad's face reflected thoughtfulness and satisfaction; clearly it was a fond memory.

"You're happy to share, right Bob?" she said, looking to dad for confirmation.

"Yep," he said, squeezing her hand, then looking hard at me, "Your mother's been telling me how she wanted to try two men for some time. It took me a while to come around. I mean, it's been years that she's been pestering me."

"Still, I persisted," mom smiled up at him coyly.

"She kept describing it in detail. Until I thought I was missing something."