"All I need is you."
Those five words, spoken in such a note of quiet certainty as to leave no doubt about their sincerity, pierced Miranda to her core and changed her life. Brendan stared at her, drinking her in, his eyes focused like twin blue lasers on her body. Her pussy heated, pushed to unexpected, tsunamic arousal by the sight of her son's virile young body. Rusty, Dean, Vern...they all paled in comparison, their bodies bloated, fat, and flabby when set beside her son. Brendan was younger, taller, stronger, his muscles more toned, his skin clear and unlined by age.
She swallowed, suddenly almost shy. Had even Jimmy, her son's father and her long-ago lover, affected her on such a visceral level? She didn't think so. Their desire for each other had been like a brushfire, while now, she felt as if a raging volcano had lodged itself between her legs, ready to erupt.
A feeling that was only increased when she saw her son's cock twitch. Once, then again more strongly.
Slowly it rose, needing no more assistance, apparently, than the sight of her own body. It was as inevitable as the tides, or the rising of the sun, or the leaves in spring. She could almost count Brendan's heartbeats, driving hot blood into his phallus, until it was high, hard, and stiff. It was just as lovely as she had imagined in her secret nighttime fantasies, a testimony of her son's desire made flesh.
"Oh." She wet her lips. "My."
"Well?" Brendan looked at her chest, then waved a hand at his body. "You've seen all of me, Mom. When am I going to see all of you?"
She couldn't stop. She didn't want to stop. Her shirt, frayed and faded though it was, seemed a hindrance, a prison, stifling her in a jail made of cloth. She almost ripped it from her body, savoring the sweet freedom as she was finally freed. Her nipples were already tense and turgid, riding high and stiff atop her aching breasts.
"Oh, God, Mom." Brendan's voice was hoarse with longing. "You're so beautiful."
"So are you," she replied unsteadily, taking in his long, strappy muscles, and especially his rod, bouncing in front of his flat stomach. Most men, she had decided long ago, looked foolish with their wangs out in the air, waving like perverted dowsing rods. But not her son. He might be uncertain, unsure. But he did not look silly.
And it will only take a little time to cure him of that little bit of shyness, her mind whispered to her. Give him a chance to learn.
"I want you," she whispered, knowing it for truth as soon as the words crossed her lips. Her heart pounded in her breasts, her groin, flooding her sheath with liquid heat. "Do you...." Her voice broke. "Do you want me?"
"Of course I do." Brendan's face cracked into a warm, sweet smile. The same smile she remembered from when he was little more than a baby in her arms. "More than anything."
And he reached for her. And she reached for him. And the feeling when their lips met was beyond anything she had ever imagined.
He lifted her, his strong hands cupping her buttocks and settling her into his lap. His thighs were warm, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, wanting nothing more than the feeling of his skin on hers. Her nether-lips spread, and as they kissed, tongues exploring feverishly, she ground herself shamelessly into his groin, pressing her fragile womanhood into his steely hardness. Her clit throbbed, pulsing with pleasure as her wetness slicked his shaft and she felt his skin on that most exquisitely sensitive part of her body.
"Mom," he gasped, and she felt his hands settle around her breasts, lifting them towards his mouth. A set of lips fastened themselves around a taut nipple, and she tilted her head back and mewled with pleasure, bolts of lightning spiking down to ground themselves in the hot wet folds of her pussy.
Too much. It was too much, too quick, and it was too soon. And if she knew anything about young men, it was that their ability to control themselves was somewhere between 'slim' and 'nonexistent.' Somehow she pulled away, though her body was aching to be filled, to have Brendan drive his wonderful, gorgeous cock into her dripping sheath.
"No," she gasped. "Not yet. Not now."
"What?" He looked up at her, his eyes wild, almost out of control.
She put her hand between their bodies, grasping his manhood. It leapt in her palm like a live thing, hard and urgent. "I want more, Brendan. More than a quickie. Can you tell me you won't blow as soon as you're inside me? It's all right," she added, as his face grew red with embarrassment. "You're young. And you're inexperienced."
"I'm not that inexperienced," he protested.
"Fine," she smiled. "You're not." She bent to his ear, whispering. "But when you fuck me, Brendan, I want you to fuck me. Do you know what I mean? And you can't do that if you're worrying about how quickly you're going to cum.
"So let Mommy help."
She slid down his body, dropping kisses on the way. She paused for a moment to lave his nipples with her tongue. So pink. So cute! They stood up in tiny little nubs as she backed away, shining with her saliva, and she caught a surprised look in Brendan's face.
"Hasn't a girl ever done that for you before?" she asked.
He shook his head numbly. "Oh, baby," she purred. "I am going to teach you so, so much."
And then she was between her son's legs, the stiff rod of his erection only a few inches away from her lips. The mere sight, hard and eager for her, made her drool. This was what she wanted. This was what she had been made for. Years ago, she had borne her son in fear and doubt. Now, the circle would close, and she would take him back into her body. Where he belonged, with love and desire.
Sweeping her hair back so it fell over one shoulder, she kissed the head of Brendan's cock, licking the salty bead of pre-cum off the tip. Her son jerked under her touch, and she smiled up at him, letting him see the naked desire in her eyes.
"You have a beautiful penis, baby," she whispered, grasping the base lightly in one hand. Slowly, she jacked him, feeling the muscles tremble and jerk. "I can't wait to have it inside me."
He laughed shakily. "Thanks, I guess."
"No guessing about it. It's beautiful. Long. And thick. But not too much, if you know what I mean." She ran her tongue up the underside of his shaft, tasting him, teasing him, then opened wide and took him in one long, slow plunge, until his head was tickling the back of her throat. She closed her eyes, reveling in Brendan's desire. The proof was right there in her mouth, as unmistakable as the sunrise.
"Oh, God, Mom." The whisper was reverent, worshipful, and her eyes widened as her son began to slide down the cushions of the couch until he was laying on his back. She followed his movements, pivoting, until she was half lying on him. His hand reached for her hip, guiding, and with a sunburst of joy she guessed his intentions.
"Sixty-nine, Brendan?" she asked, letting his cock slip out of her mouth. She licked the swollen glans, just a flick of the tip of her tongue, and was rewarded with a shiver. His cock leaped, straining towards her lips, and she kissed it again fondly. "Do you think you can?"
"I think I can try," he answered. "And I know I want you to feel as good as you are making me feel." He ran his hands over the curves of her rear, and she arched into his touch. Strong and sweet and tender. How had she gone so long without this, the touch of a real man, a man who really cared about her? "Just...tell me if I'm doing it wrong, okay?"
His concern for her touched her heart. When was the last time one of her boyfriends had asked her what she liked? Years? Longer? All they had wanted from her was to get their rocks off. And if she got any satisfaction out of the deal, well, that was just an unintended bonus. They certainly weren't going to exert themselves to make sure that she had a good time in bed, or learn what she enjoyed the most. She frowned. Or what she didn't like.
"I will, baby," she whispered. She moved up, draping her chest across Brendan's lean, muscular torso. Just before she settled down, she felt his hands slide beneath her, cupping her breasts, and smiled. Very carefully, she wiggled back, so her cleft was angled towards her son's mouth. When she felt the warm air of his breath on her labia, she let her body lower that last, crucial inch.
And Brendan began to eat her pussy.
She melted. In her heart, she had prepared herself for the clumsy tonguing of a boy who, while eager to please her, didn't really have the faintest idea what he was doing. It wasn't Brendan's fault. Not really. Everyone had to learn, and the process was sometimes painful. The first time she and Jimmy had sixty-nined, she had bitten down so hard on his cock when she climaxed that her boyfriend couldn't screw her for nearly a week.
So she let Brendan's erection slip out of her mouth and pillowed her head on his flat stomach, contenting herself with slow, sensual licks on the side of his shaft and slow pumps of her hand. Enough for her son to know she was paying attention, but allowing her to concentrate on what was truly important. Because if what Jimmy had done for her one surprisingly balmy February night in a corn field outside of town had been good, she suspected that what Brendan had in store for her would be epic. Whether by luck or skill or sheer good fortune, he had the kind of touch that she enjoyed the most. Not the desperate, frenzied stabbings with his tongue that most men employed, as if her pussy was a sort of erotic version of "battleship" and if they took enough wild guesses at where her clit was they might get lucky and sink her destroyer. Instead, he employed his tongue like a paintbrush, flat and wide and slow, starting at the top of her slit and not stopping until he had reached the bottom, running over her sensitive lips with the sort of exquisite, sensual torture that had her writhing.
She spread her legs wider, needing more, wanting to somehow have her entire crotch inside her son's hot, loving mouth. She rolled her body in time with his tongue-strokes, trying to prolong each one to the fullest. Her pussy was hot as lava - a horny, smoldering cauldron of lust.
A glimpse of motion in the corner of her eye caught her attention. She stilled, arrested by the sight. In the television screen, she could make out their twin reflections. Brendan's head was hidden between her thighs, but she could plainly see the jutting spear of his cock near her head. But it was her reflection that entranced her. Her rear was planted firmly on her son's face, propped on the arm of the couch. Her back was bent in a sensual arch, her hair falling over one shoulder. Even in the dim mirror of the screen, her skin seemed to glisten, and her face was wild and radiant, the look of a woman who had decided to throw off all caution and to take everything life had to offer, and damn the consequences to hell.
"Oh, Brendan," she whispered, completely unstrung, wishing she could take a photograph of this moment and frame it so neither of them could ever forget. "That's it. You're doing fine. Great." She giggled, thinking about how she sounded - the same way when she was trying to teach her son something new when he was little. "Better than great. You're eating Mommy's pussy so nice. Can you taste how wet you're making me? How horny?"
Brendan didn't answer. Not in words. But a muffled grunt from between her thighs and a loving squeeze on her breasts made his agreement clear. Another sweet stroke of his tongue slid over her clit, making her thighs shake. Fuck, she thought. He could do this for hours and I wouldn't stop him. She covered her son's hands with hers, squeezing slightly, and was rewarded by increased pressure on her breasts, gasping when he rolled the sensitive tips between his fingers.
Oh, sweet Jesus. This isn't going to be a cum. This is going to be goddam fucking Krakatoa. Her body was hanging on the precipice, needing only a nudge to send her screaming over the edge. She angled her hips and closed her eyes.
And when Brendan's tongue hit her clitoris again, she pushed back against him, trapping his tongue against her clit. "Lick me," she growled, deep in her throat. She had to cum. She might go mad if she didn't. Her body quivered with the force of her pent-up need. "Lick me quick and fast, Brendan!"
Somehow he understood. His hands left her breasts, holding her hips in a firm grip, and he began suckling on her clit, strumming it with his tongue with strokes as swift and light as a hummingbird's wings.
And then her orgasm crashed down on her. Years - no, fuck that, decades - of sexual frustration were swept away like a pebble in a flood. Her hands bunched around her son's calves and she tilted her head back and keened in ecstasy as her groin pounded with the force of her release. Wave after wave of pleasure washed over her, her pussy clenching as long-disused muscles woke from their unwilling slumber and roared to life.
"Oh, God. Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. Brendan you make me cum so good! Don't stop. Don't stop. Oh, yessssssss!" She clenched her teeth shut on her passionate screams, suddenly afraid that the sound would carry out the open windows and bring a herd of righteously furious Baptists down on their heads, disgusted at them for profaning the sabbath with their incestuous lust.
Slowly, the joyous tremors of her climax slowed, then ceased altogether. With a groan, Miranda pulled herself a few inches forward and removed her throbbing pussy from the vicinity of Brendan's mouth. Right now, she didn't think she could take any more, and best to remove temptation.
Temptation from him at least. But not for me. Her son's cock was still there, stiff as a flagpole. At no time during the epic binge of oral sex had Brendan indicated that he might have needs that she was not filling. Almost any other man, she knew, would have insisted that she pleasure him as well, would not have made his needs secondary to her own.
Well, time to take care of that. She shifted, licking the side of her son's shaft. Slowly, lovingly. He tasted divine, his skin slightly salty with the honest sweat of desire. The tight curls of his pubic hair tickled her cheek as she rose up on one elbow and stroked him with hands and mouth. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the feel of him. A man's cock was a sensitive instrument, and if one paid attention, the tiny shifts of the inner muscles, the jolts of beating blood, would tell a skilled woman all she needed to know.
She hummed around him, and felt his hands return to her body, stroking, exploring. From her thighs to her rear to her back and then around to her torso, playing with her sweat-slick breasts, they didn't leave her for an instant. Almost she wished that Brendan would use his fingers to fill the emptiness inside her. But no. Fingers, no matter how skilled or willing, would be a poor exchange for what she had in her mouth. And it wasn't as if she was ever going to willingly let him go. Finally, after years of fruitless searching, she had her man. The first thing he put in her pussy was going to be his cock, not some half-assed substitute.
"Mom." His hands had reached her head. For a second, as they threaded through her hair, she tensed, the victim of more than one unhappy memory. But Brendan didn't yank at her blond tresses. Instead, he guided her with firm tugs that never even approached the threshold of pain, but made her sheath absolutely gush as he took control."Mmmmmm," she moaned around his shaft. Saliva slid down the sides, making it gleam in the afternoon light. She wanted his cum, needed it, with a hunger that was almost frightening. She reached down with one hand, cupping his balls, and rolled them in her fingers, feeling the wonderful weight. Yes. Big and heavy and fat with her son's seed. Her other hand wrapped around the base of Brendan's shaft, and as her mouth rose towards his tip, she pumped him, almost as if she were pulling his semen out of his body by sheer force.
"Mom," he repeated, his voice higher. What was it? A moan of encouragement? A plea? A warning?
If it was a warning, it was one that was completely unnecessary. She could feel it beginning in the tiny muscles, too small to see, that fluttered beneath her cheek. Feel it as her son's manhood thickened in her mouth, the entire shaft rising as it surged forward. Feel it as Brendan took her hair in her hands and dragged her, unresisting, all the way down his rod, until her mouth was planted at the base, his pubic hair tickling her lips. And taste it when he let go at last, his cum blasting into her mouth and down her throat like an erupting geyser. She swallowed, again and again, hungry for more, her lips and tongue not stopping until his body relaxed under her, going limp and boneless, his chest rising in deep, heavy breaths as his orgasm receded.
She let his length slide out of her mouth cleaning him as she went, so that when he at last fell out, striking the flat of his belly with a meaty slap, he was as clean as if he had just stepped out of the shower. She raised up on one knee and spun in place, draping her body over his, her head pillowed on his shoulder.
"Thank you, sweetie," she whispered, leaning in for a kiss. She caught the almost invisible flinch, and settled for a quick peck on the cheek.
Young men. He's going to have to learn that jizz isn't poison. If I can swallow it, the least he can do is kiss me afterward.
"I needed that," she said instead.
"I could...kind of tell," Brendan said. "God, Mom. I never knew you were so loud when you...when you..."
"When I came?" she smirked. "Well, it's been a long time since I've had one that good. And when you were younger, I tried to make sure you were asleep. No sense scaring you. Especially when you were too young to understand what was going on. Whereas you," she added, "barely made a sound. Why is that?"
He smiled up at her and cupped her breast. She sighed and leaned into the touch, wriggling happily as his finger tickled her nipple. "Self-preservation. If there's only two people living in a house together, and one of them is making a lot of noise when he's..."
"Engaging in the sin of self-abuse?" she smiled.
"Thanks, grandma," he said sarcastically. "But really. I didn't want you to know what I was doing. And moans and groans coming out of my bedroom would have been a hint."
"True." She very carefully didn't mention some of the other things which had made her son's nocturnal habits clear. Not that she hadn't expected them. She had been raising a teenage boy, not a monk, for heaven's sake. And if she saw a dirty magazine or two that hadn't been hidden quite cleverly enough, or if her son seemed to go through more tissue than really seemed necessary, things could be a lot worse. At least he wasn't strung out on meth or spending every waking minute playing video games. "But now you can feel free to moan and groan all you want," she added, reaching down to lay a possessive hand over his cock. "Especially when we're fucking."
"Fucking?" he squeaked.
"Well, yeah." She eyed him curiously. "Did you think I was going to leave you hanging after we've gone this far?"
"Mom. After what you did for me, I'm not sure I can think." He pulled an idiotic expression, one belied by his twitching lips. "Brendan no think good now. Brainy no worky."
"Good thing I only want you for your body, then," she retorted. She lifted her palm. "Good grief. You're still mostly hard. Is that...usual, for you?"
He shrugged. "Mostly, yeah. Is it unusual, for you?"
She kissed his cheek. "Not anymore." She got up, tugging at his hand. "Come on. The couch might be big enough for a little bit of fun. Sometimes. But I'm not going to fuck on it.
"Let's go, lover. It's time for you to take Mommy's incest cherry."
Chapter 5: Granted
"Let's go, lover. It's time for you to take Mommy's incest cherry."
The words echoed in Brendan's mind as he followed his mother down the hall into her bedroom.
He swallowed. He knew that Miranda had a...reputation...around town. In a town the size of Mayfield, he could hardly avoid it, after all. His mother, as they liked to say, got around.
But he had never imagined that she could be so blatantly, shamelessly sexual. That she could not only give him a blowjob in the middle of the living room while he ate her out, but that she could actually celebrate their taboo love, flaunting it by actually calling it what it was.
Incest.
He swung the door behind them as he followed her into her bedroom. She turned around, smiling up at him, her eyes sparkling as she took him in from head to toe.
"My man," she said, walking into his arms. She lifted her head for a kiss, and he shivered as the tips of her breasts pressed into his chest. He groaned into her mouth, pulling her tight to him as their kiss deepened, leaping into flame like a match hitting a pile of oil-soaked rags. His cock, already half-erect when he walked into room, roared back to life, rising and stiffening until it pressed into the skin of her belly.
Miranda broke the kiss, backing away so she could look up into his eyes. "My sweet boy," she whispered, running the fingers of one hand from his temple to his jawline. "Are you sure you want this? Want me?" She gave a jagged laugh. "I might still look pretty good for my age. But my tits and my ass won't last forever. One day you might wake up next to me and decide that you can do better."
"No." He shook his head, denying even the possibility. "Mom. I don't love your breasts. Or your butt. Or your legs or your face or any of the rest. Not even your...your..." He stuttered, his face going red.
"My pussy?" she inquired impishly.
"Yeah. That." He swallowed. "I love you. Not your body parts. You're...you're not a freaking inventory, where I say that your boobs are a ten, but your legs are only a seven, and your face is a six." He smiled at her outraged expression, and held up a hand, halting whatever she was about to say. "And that if you fall under some sort of arbitrary number, well, sorry Mom, you just aren't good enough for me anymore."
"Ooh. I love it when you use fancy words," she purred. She licked his neck as he stroked her nipples with his thumbs, threatening to drive all coherent thought out of his head. "Go on. I'm listening."
"Well," he continued, trying to finish while he could still form complete sentences. "Someday you might be all old and wrinkly. But I might get all gross and fat with a beergut the size of a pony-keg, and wouldn't that be embarrassing." He touched her cheek. "But I will never stop loving you."
"Oh." She blinked rapidly. "That's just...really lovely, Brendan."
"What? The thought of me with a beergut?"
She shoved his shoulder. "No, you big, adorable goof. About you loving me forever."
"Well," he said judiciously. "I could just be saying that to get you into bed."
"If you were, then it's working." She lay down, then reached out to him, her head propped on her hand. "Last chance to back out, baby."
"No way." He lowered himself to the bed, took his mother in his arms, and kissed her fervently, letting her know, with lips and tongue and the throbbing rod of his erection, how much he wanted her. "What do you want?" he asked.
"I want to fuck. Now."
"Oh." He pulled away for a second, blinking. "What about foreplay?"
"Foreplay? Foreplay?" she hooted. "We've been doing foreplay for something like the last half hour, Brendan!
"Here's the deal." She rolled over, pulling him with her, and took his head between her hands, giving him a little shake. "You can kiss me. And play with my tits. And touch me everywhere you can reach. But." She raised an admonishing finger. "You don't get to do any of that if your dick isn't inside my pussy. Comprende, mijo?"
"Si, claro," he replied, grateful to Mrs. Connelly for dragging him, kicking and screaming, through four years of Spanish class. He leaned down, kissing his mother, still amazed at how the afternoon had turned. She sighed under his mouth, then shifted, her legs opening wide. A subtle, writhing move, and something hot and wet and impossibly delicate brushed the head of his cock, like a flower made of molten metal. He looked down and saw that the tip of his glans was poised at his mother's entrance.
He was ready. Fuck, he was beyond ready. The last week had led, inevitably, to this moment, and he wasn't going to let it slip away. With a push of his hips, he entered his mother's pussy, gasping with shock as her wet, carnal heat surrounded his prick. Deeper, deeper, until the base of his cock was flush with her lips, and he had to force himself to stop pushing.
"Oh, damn," he whispered, staring down at where their bodies joined. It was impossible, but it was true. He was fucking his mother.
"Yeah," a voice answered. Miranda's eyes were shining. Her hair spilled over the pillows like a golden starburst. "You feel...so fucking good, baby." She wriggled, spreading her legs a little wider and raising her knees, and Brendan felt himself slip another impossible fraction of an inch deeper into her channel. Her eyes rolled back in her head. "So fucking good," she repeated, her voice going thick and raspy.
"Now. Fuck me."
Even if Brendan hadn't been a willing slave to his mother's commands, he wouldn't have been able to hold back. His cock was a throbbing bar of iron, and he was losing the last vestiges of control. He began to thrust into her. Slowly, at first. But when she began to lift her hips, grinding her mound against him on every stroke, he began to pump into her more firmly.
God, it was wonderful. He bent down, palming a breast and bring the high, tight nipple to his mouth, opening wide and suckling on the tense, straining bud, smiling as the golden-hired goddess beneath him whimpered and shook.
"Fuck, your cock feels good, Brendan," she groaned. "You're fucking me so good, just like a good mother-fucker should. You're mine. My mother-fucking lover." A hand slid down between their bodies, and she began to rub herself in quick, circular motions, her fingers just below the close-clipped patch of pubic hair at the top of her cleft. "Keep going. Keep fucking me with that gorgeous cock of yours. Oh, Jesus, you're going to make me cum again."
She lifted her knees even higher, until they were almost at a level at her shoulders. At that angle, her entire body was wantonly exposed. Brendan almost stopped, staring, before instinct took over again. The sight of his mother's cleft, lewdly displayed as if it was the single most important part of Miranda's body, was heart-stopping. It was as if the entirety of their two bodies had narrowed to a few precious inches.
"Yes," she groaned, reading his thoughts. "Your cock. And my cunt. Together. Just like they should be. Oh, Brendan!" Her voice pitched higher. "It's happening again. I'm going to cum!" Her hands covered her breasts, squeezing hard. "Oh, Godddd," she said, her voice almost sobbing, and a velvet vise clenched his cock as her body shook in release.
The sight of his mother losing control and climaxing pushed Brendan over the edge. His strokes grew mor frenzied, his belly slapping against the back of his mother's thighs. He had just enough time to gasp out. "Mom! Cumming!" before he poured his orgasm into Miranda's waiting vessel in a drumroll of staccato bursts.
*****
The day was growing late. Outside, the shadows were lengthening as the sun slid down the sky towards night. Two figures lay on the bed, their arms around each other.
"I love you, Mom."
Miranda smiled. "Still?"
He kissed the point of her shoulder, and she settled deeper into his embrace. "Yes. Still."
"Did you...do you..." His voice trailed off uncertainly.
"Love you?" Miranda's voice was quiet in the dim room. She snuggled close to him, her warm, lovely body fitting into his arms as if the two of them had been designed for each other, and each other alone. "I love how it feels when we're fucking. I love how you're safe, and warm, and how you protect me. Even from myself. And I love you." Her voice caught, just for a second. "Love is only a word, Brendan. It needs someone to give it definition, to make you feel it." She put his hand on her chest, between her lovely breasts. Through her skin, he could feel the beating of her heart. "You and me? That's love."
"Oh." Brendan tried to stay calm, but he suspected he was grinning like an idiot. "Good. That's good.
"So...what now?"
"Now? Now we get up and clean up and have something for supper. Because I am fucking starving. And then maybe we screw two or three more times before we go to bed.
"But tomorrow," she said, bouncing to her feet with an energy that made her look half her age. "We start making plans." She leaned down and kissed him. "Because if you think I'm going to stay here while you're finishing up school and halfway across the state, you need your head examined."
Epilogue: Kentucky Cougar
They held her going-away party at a barbeque joint on Main Street. It was supposed to be a surprise, but these days Brendan couldn't keep any secrets from her. So when Gail and some of the girls invited her out for a "goodbye drink,' on Friday night, and half the company (and a few of her friends) shouted 'surprise!' as she entered the beer garden, she had to use all of her acting skills to look as surprised as she should have been.
"I'm still pissed at you, you know," Gail said as she handed her a drink. "Rum and coke's yours, isn't it?"
"That's right," she replied, her eye spying Brendan, who had been trapped against the far wall by the Terrible Twosome. They were flirting with him shamelessly, confused as ever by his ability to resist them.
"They're starting to wonder if he's gay, you know," Gail observed with a shake of her head. "They can't figure out why he hasn't been running after them with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, like most men his age."
She smiled secretly as she took a sip of her drink. "Well, we're off to Lexington in a few days, so they can just wonder away."
"Lexington." Her former boss shook her head. "Why, Miranda?"
"Because I was dying here," she said bluntly. "Brendan helped me see it. I spent the first half of my life being the good girl my parents wanted me to be. And I spent the next half being the bad girl they were convinced I was. Lord knows why. I was never going to win that argument, with both of them in the cemetery these last six years."
Gail nodded her understanding. "So I've wasted half of my life, living it based on what other people thought I was, or should be. And I'm never going to get the chance here to prove everyone wrong. Too many memories, too many people who want to put me in back my place if I ever get to acting uppity. To them I'll always be the cheerleader who got pregnant at seventeen and then spent the next twenty years screwing her way through town.
"I'm sorry to leave. I really am. Especially you and the folks out at the nursery. You taught me that I actually had some value aside from how I looked." She gave the older woman a hug, not missing the glimmer of tears in her eyes. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. And if you find the big city is a little too big, well, you'll always be welcome back here."
"Maybe," Miranda replied neutrally. In reality, she could hardly wait to leave. The thought of leaving her hometown was simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating, as was the prospect of a new job (at a considerable increase in salary) at a landscaping and nursery company, not far from the University of Kentucky. It had all fallen together like magic, when she and Brendan decided that the only reasonable thing to do, if they wanted to remain lovers, was for Miranda to move to Lexington with him. An apartment would be all they would need until her son graduated college. And after that...who knew? Maybe they could find a place where no one knew them, or their past, and settle down.
A flock of servers emerged from the kitchen, and in a few minutes, everyone had gotten down to the serious business of eating, sitting down at the long wooden tables. Lights on strings overhead gave the beer garden a merry, festive radiance. Miranda smiled as she spied Brendan, holding forth on something, as three or four other people looked tolerantly on.
The last three months had been an exercise on how well they could hide their feelings for each other. Some days it had been torture, watching her son, unable to express even the slightest hint of the passion that exploded between them behind closed doors. But in other ways it had been a blessing - a warm-up of sorts. Lexington, for all that it was easily a dozen times as big as Mayfield, would be no more tolerant of their relationship than its smaller cousin.
And besides. Having to deny themselves for eight or ten or twelve hours a day made the nights that much hotter.
She straightened, blinking. Was that...? She stood suddenly, waving. "Hey! Gene!"
"Honeybunch!" The hairdresser peeled away from the smiling couple with whom he had been chatting and bounced over to her table. "How absolutely marvelous to see you! What's all this? A party? For you?" He pouted. "And I wasn't invited, you wicked thing!" He folded his arms across his chest with a sniff. "I don't think I will ever forgive you. What's the occasion?" he asked, putting the lie to his own words.
"I'm moving to Lexington next week," she explained. "This is a good-bye from the people I work with." She quickly made introductions around the table. Her co-workers, she was amused to see, eyed Gene with a wary air.
"Well, you and Brendan enjoy your trip. I hear that sixty-nine is a lot of fun," he winked.
"What?" The blood drained out of her face.
"The interstate, girlfriend! Isn't that how you get up there? Interstate sixty-nine?"
"Oh. Yeah." Somehow, she kept her relief from leaking through.
"Well, I have to go. Allison and her husband have been plaguing me to come to this place for months. If I don't pay attention to them, I'm sure she'll do me an injury." He leaned down and kissed her cheek. "Ta, darling."
"What a strange young man," Gail said.
"Yes." She touched her cheek, where his lips had landed. "But he's great with hair. I can give you his number if you like."
"Gene?"
"Yes, Allison, my love?"
The young woman poked him in the chest with a finger, one eye on Miranda's departing figure. "Have you been granting wishes without telling us again?"
The genie laid a hand on his chest in mock horror. "Allison! How can you ever accuse me of such a thing?"
"It wouldn't be the first time," her husband grinned. "Who's the lucky man? Or woman?"
"That tasty piece of meat over there." Gene nodded towards Brendan's tall form. "He never would have made a move on his mother if I hadn't given the two of them a little...nudge."
"His...mother?" Allison stiffened in shock, and even Ray, who had, until recently, occupied a body that looked quite a bit different than his present one, blinked.
"Oh, but look at them!" Gene sighed happily as Miranda sidled up to Brandan's side. He slipped an arm around her waist and hugged her. The smoldering sexual tension was there, if one was wise enough to see it. "They're so happy!"
Ray looked at his wife. "You're living dangerously these days, Gene," he finally said. His mild voice hardened a fraction. "Watch your step, or I might have to tug on your leash."
The genie smirked. "I've been waiting for you to make the offer for months, darling. Oh, yes," he begged, vamping outrageously. "Tie me up, tie me down!"
Allison laughed, and her husband shook his head mournfully. "And you do nothing but encourage him."
She put her finger on his lips, tracing the line of his mouth lovingly. "You made the decision to give him his freedom, my love. Can you blame him if he gives the same gift to others?
"Is love so wrong?"
*****
"Finally," Brendan let a breath explode out of him as he shut the door behind them. He took Miranda in his arms. "That was the longest good-bye dinner in the history of the world!"
"Oh, no," his mother said, slipping out of his embrace. "You aren't kissing me with barbeque breath." She pointed down the hall. "Take a shower. Twenty minutes." Her voice lowered teasingly. "I'll be waiting for you."
He didn't need to be told twice. He dodged between half-packed boxes, filled with the things they would be toting into the U-Haul in a couple of days. Most of the rest would be donated to the Salvation Army or Goodwill.
Three years, he thought as he scrubbed himself. Then I graduate. Then I get a good job. And then we can get a good place. Better than an apartment. And a lot better than this. His nose wrinkled as he looked at the faded tile in the tiny shower cubicle, barely big enough to stand in.
When he walked into his mother's bedroom, a few minutes later, it was lit with candles, and she was lying on her stomach, her head pillowed on her arms. He smiled. It was a game she had begun a few weeks ago; her position on the bed told her how she wanted to screw. Several nights back he had been shocked to find her with her back towards him, and had been sure she was furiously angry with him about something. It had taken some very eloquent body-language for Miranda to convince him that what she really wanted was to spoon.
"Doggie tonight, huh?" he chuckled, and crawled in bed with her. His hands stroked her legs, as always amazed at her golden-skinned beauty. Under his touch, they opened slightly, and he could scent the perfume of her musk, heady with arousal.
"And hurry," she whispered. Her hips canted up, and he could see the lips of her pussy peeking at him. "I'm so horny I can barely stand it, baby."
"As my lady wishes," he said, moving behind her. His hands settled around her waist, and he wetted the tip of his penis in her folds, already hot and slick with desire.
"No. No wishes," she moaned as he sank into her. "I don't need any.
"Mine have all come true."