By now customary, Sammy awoke with his member in Kate’s mouth. He
stretched languidly, feeling her pleasing tongue but unlike the first
time, not yet ready to climax. Daylight streamed in the windows. Fully
clothed in her maid’s uniform, she bent over the side of the bed,
studying him from the corner of her eye.

The pleasure ended as she raised her head. After licking her lips, she
said, “Get up and get dressed.”

“Finish me first,” he demanded.

“Not this morning.” She sniffed. “Your mother wants you to join her
for breakfast.”

“Aw, suck some more. It won’t take long.”

But the woman backed completely off the bed. “Too long. I must go
finish the cooking. Ms. Adelaide wants you in the little dining room in
15 minutes — ten now.” She caught his hand and demonstrated her
considerable strength by pulling him out of bed to his feet. “Go piss
and get your clothes on.”

Pausing at his door, she smiled fondly at his crestfallen expression.
“You know I’ll suck out every drop you can make as soon as she’s through
with you. Now hurry!”

He washed his face, brushed teeth and hair, slipped on T-shirt,
short-shorts and sneakers and presented himself on time in the little
dining room. Kate was just serving a breakfast of waffles, scrambled
eggs and shaved ham.

His mother, wearing a flowery housecoat, waited at the head of the
table. He dropped into the seat on her left. “Morning, Mom.”

“Good morning, dear. Don’t forget your napkin.”

He opened it into his lap as Kate filled his plate. Her hip nudged his
side. She winked when he looked up.

“I haven’t seen much of you since we returned,” said Adelaide after
sipping her coffee. “How’ve you been, Son?”

“Okay.”

“Only okay?”

He regarded her thoughtfully. “How’m I supposed to answer?”

“Well, something like, ‘Just fine. How are you?’ Have you been ‘just
fine?'”

“Oh, yeah!” He grinned up at Kate. “I’ve been just great!”

“That’s good. I gather Kate’s been taking good care of you.”

The housekeeper’s hand, at that moment spreading butter on his toast,
froze. He thought a moment before answering. “She thinks I need more
exercise.”

“Yes, she told me. I think she’s right.”

Kate finished with the butter. He recognized the pleased twinkle in her
eyes despite the mask of servitude.

He asked, “When will you open the pool?”

“I’m thinking of more than that,” Adelaide answered. “Suppose I have it
enclosed so we could run it all winter. Would you like that?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am!” His eyes sparkled.

She chuckled. “I’ll call the estate people today. Do you swim, Kate?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well enough to act as a lifeguard?”

“I’ve done that as a summer job.”

Adelaide smiled her approval. “You should include it on your resume.”

“Thank you. I shall.”

“Not that you’ll need a resume any time soon, I hope.”

“It’s kind of you to tell me that, ma’am.”

“I’ve noticed the quality of your work, more closely than you know.”

“Ma’am?”

“And I’m pleased with the results, almost as much as Sammy is.”

“Ah, ah, thank you, ma’am.” Kate’s voice was subdued. “Will there be
anything else?”

“Not just now. When we finish here, Sammy and I will go to my office
for awhile.”

“Shall I take telephone calls?”

“In the usual way. Buzz me if it’s anything important. Umm. I’m
expecting Bernard Canfield to return my call. Definitely buzz if it is
he.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Kate withdrew.

As they finished eating, Sammy asked, “Are you staying home today?”

“This morning anyway. I may go to see Uncle Bernie later.”

“Will you take me with you?”

She chuckled and regarded him speculatively. “We never did get the
chance to discuss your visit with him.”

“A little bit. I told you he took me golfing.”

“What else?”

“Well … I met some of his friends.”

“Did you!”

“And I shot pool in the clubhouse. Are you a member, Mom?”

“No, but I’m planning to join.”

He stared at her with the beginning of a smile. “Are you really?”

Her gaze was level. “Funerals are sad affairs, especially for loved
ones, but sometimes they open your eyes.”

He thought that over. “How?”

“By calling your attention to what’s really important. As your Uncle
Carl so succinctly put it: the difference between a bird in the hand and
pie in the sky.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The difference between what you actually have available to you and what
you’ve been taught to wish for. He said your grandmother understood
that difference better than most. I’ve done nothing since your father
died but wish for what I lost. It’s time to quit wasting time. Wipe
your mouth and come along.”

* * *

Adelaide’s “office” was a cozy room with a captain’s chair perched
behind a huge desk, a couch on the adjacent wall and a matched pair of
padded chairs. Windows over the couch looked out into the cedars to the
north. Keyboard, mouse and a large computer monitor sat atop the desk.
On the right hung a wall-spanning plasma screen, currently gray, visible
from all seats. Nondescript prints and a portrait of Sammy’s father
adorned the wall behind the desk.

“Wow!” exclaimed Sammy, glancing around wide-eyed.

She chuckled. “Close your mouth. You should visit me more often.”

“It’s always locked!”

“Not when I’m in it.”

“Can I move my Playstation in here?”

“The screen in the den is nearly as large.” She sighed. “Sammy, you
disappoint me. I thought you were growing up.”

“You did?”

“Sit down and I’ll show you a piece of my evidence.”

He flopped into one of the free-standing chairs and regarded her
expectantly.

She studied him. “Have you understood why I hired Kate Jones?”

“Mabel wanted to retire.”

“That was one reason. When I checked Kate’s references, the Fallons
told me –”

“The who?”

“The Fallon family. Has she mentioned the three brothers she raised?”

“Umm … yeah.”

“Apparently she did a fine job. One of them graduated from Princeton
last year and married the daughter of another good family. He’s going
on for his masters. The two younger ones have excellent grades. She
certainly helped them mature. I was hoping she would help you in the
same manner. And then I saw this.”

She clicked her mouse. The huge screen lit to depict a scene of
colorful flowers, hedges and shade trees. Morning sunbeams slanted
through the scene. Bird chirps sounded from concealed speakers. Two
women were in the middle foreground, running one behind the other along
a flagstone path that curled back toward the trees. No! He recognized
the coats, the blond hair above shorts and the bare legs of the leader,
dark hair above skirt and hose of the follower. This was the recent
race into the garden by himself and Kate.

“Where … how?”

“You really should notice something besides your video games, Son. I
installed this security system last year. That’s an infra-red guided
camera setup at the entrance to our formal garden. It automatically
catches anything large and warm-blooded if the daylight isn’t too
bright.”

“‘Catches?'”

“Makes a recording of it.”

The onscreen couple loped down the path away from the camera, but their
bodies didn’t shrink in perspective. Instead the distant trees seemed
to be approaching.

Sammy declared, “Somebody must be following us!”

“The camera zooms automatically.”

“Wow, you really know all about it!”

“The salesman was quite tiresome.”

The couple flopped on a bench in the shade. Dark hair’s arm slipped
around blond’s shoulders, who was obviously panting heavily. Now it was
possible to recognize faces.

Adelaide said, “It’s easy to see why she thinks you need exercise.”

“I guess she’s right.”

“They — you — talked for awhile.”

“You can’t hear what we said?”

“No. This system wasn’t meant to spy on ourselves, just to catch
intruders. Let me advance it …”

Her mouse sounded again: click, drag, click. The blonde figure slipped
forward to kneel on the well-manicured grass. His hand slipped under
the woman’s coat. Soon he threw up the woman’s skirt and dived between
thighs white above strap-restrained hose. Her face scanned around the
garden while his forehead pressed into dark pubes. His near shoulder
worked, evidently from a hand moving below his chin. Shortly her head
went back against a tree trunk.

Mother and son watched it, a still-life except for leaves fluttering in
the slight breeze, the boy’s working shoulder and the woman’s occasional
twitches. Adelaide mused, “It would surprise me if she managed to teach
you that in only two weeks. But of course she didn’t.”

“What do you mean?” he asked in fascination.

“Let’s watch a little more.” The depicted Kate did not endure his
ministrations much more than a minute before arching her back and crying
out, now audible above the birdsong, and shoving his head back. He
rocked back on his heels, grinning, and wiped his mouth on the back of a
hand before dropping his shorts and jumping up on the bench, coat pulled
up, turgid red member thrusting. She immediately leaned forward and
took all of it into her mouth. Her arms encircled his buttocks.

His mother added dryly, “And she wasn’t the first to do that for you
either.”

Sammy felt his face grow hot. “Has somebody said something?”

“Exactly: ‘somebody.’ When we returned home, I found a call on my
answering machine from the country club assistant secretary, a certain
Ethel Horton. I called her back and she told me a few things.
Particularly that a ‘stool widow’ — her words — named Helen Bodiegan
had waylaid you three times and taken you upstairs in the clubhouse to
spend the afternoon. She said that Ms. Bodiegan was a wealthy widow
known to prey on young men and that I could have her arrested for
statutory rape.”

Sammy felt cold. “I … I … What did you say to her?”

“Do you know these women?”

“Y-yes, ma’am.”

“Were you unkind to Ms. Horton?”

“Well … I guess she thought so. She put her hand in my shorts while I
was trying to take a shot. I gouged the nap and called her a wicked
person.”

“She obviously took offense. A pool shot?”

“Yeah. Jake laughed fit to bust a gut.”

“Say ‘laughed very hard.'”

He repeated the words docilely. Adelaide struck several keys on the
keyboard. The large screen became uniformly gray.

She looked up. “And Carl called my attention to the view from his suite
into the guest wing of Mamma’s place. You and that Morgan girl —
Sherry — were intimately engaged on her bed. Why didn’t you pull the
drapes?”

Sammy sighed. “It was raining when we came in. Guess we forgot. Gosh,
Mamma!”

“Gosh indeed!”

Sammy shook his head. “Do you really think Helen and Sherry … and
Kate are wicked people?”

“What? I never said that.”

“Well, that _I’m_ wicked, then?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Son, what are you getting at?”

“You always told me to stay away from wicked people, but you didn’t say
who they were. A boy felt of my cock in the mall and admitted he was
wicked. I thought you meant people who fu– ah, people who had sex. I
asked Helen if that’s what made people wicked. I liked her answer.”

Adelaide smiled slightly. “I’m sure it was ‘No.'”

“She said, ‘How can anything so delightful be wicked?'”

“What did you think of Helen, Son? Wasn’t she an older woman?”

“Lots older than you. She showed me how to really make a woman feel
good.”

“And you liked doing that?”

“Oh, yeah, ’cause she made me feel good too!”

His mother studied him narrowly, bit her lip and sighed. “You’ve had a
busy six weeks, haven’t you!”

“Oh, wow!”

“Did you figure out what makes people wicked?”

“I think so. The first step, anyway. I even looked up the word.”

“What word?”

“Hypocrisy.”

She thought about it. “What does that mean to you?”

“Letting people believe a lie about you. Letting them believe you’re
helping them when you’re really helping yourself.”

“Oh? Then I take it you’ve met some wicked people?”

“One, anyway. A cop.”

“Really? A policeman?”

“Yeah, the one that brought me to you when they arrested Leila.”

“Leila Strump? Did you know the charges against her were dropped? What
made the cop wicked?”

“He told me a lot of lies so he could do me in the butt.”

“Good heavens!” Adelaide’s hand went to her mouth. “Did you get his
name or badge number?”

“They called him ‘Pudge.’ But who cares?”

She struck keys on the keyboard. “My lawyer will have him arrested!”

“Why?”

“Because he … He sodomized you! Didn’t it … hurt?”

“No. His cock was thinner than mine.”

“Wasn’t he a grown man?”

Sammy grinned. “I think I must have a large one for a boy.”

“I don’t think I’ve noticed.”

“Well, you’re my mother.”

“_That_ I’ve noticed! So you conclude that sex isn’t wicked.”

“Not by itself.”

“That’s very interesting, Son.” She paused for a deep breath. “I’ve
recently come to a similar conclusion.”

“You have?”

“I finally understand that your grandmother led a very happy life, much
happier than her daughter, even though both were widows. Your father’s
death was a terrible blow to me. I took refuge in religion but found it
inadequate, its claims unbelievable, though I wouldn’t admit it out
loud. I think having lost my beloved, I became afraid of life. Well,
all that is changed.”

“You … you …”

“I have a masters in business, Son. I am taking over Mamma’s
corporations. I mean to clean out the deadwood and make them profitable
again. And I’m reorganizing my own life too. Carl and I were always
close. He and I talked a lot while we were in Cleveland. He showed me
I’ve been wasting my life. I’m still young, Sammy. I’ll spend no more
time dawdling at home, mooning over your father. I intend to find me a
man with a zest for life.

“And in the meantime I’ve also provided for you. One of Ms. Fallon
statements was the clincher. She said Kate was more of a wife to her
sons than a nanny and warned me against hiring her if I wanted to keep
you innocent. I thought, ‘What good is innocence in a boy?’

“I like the way Kate presses me to buy you toys and equipment for
exercise. They’re on order, by the way. Also I’ve cancelled the tutor
I almost hired in favor of one who has also been a coach. Your body
is pretty, I’ve noticed, but it’s soft. It needs to be toughened up and
made into a man’s. Mind and most of the body will be your tutor’s
responsibility.” She smiled. “We’ll reserve your genitals to Kate.”

“Mamma!” Eyes alight, he said, “You really do love me.”

“Good heavens, Sammy, did you doubt it?”

“I love you too, Mamma.” He went around the desk, sagged into her lap
and hugged her with a kiss on the lips.

She squeezed him to her breast. “Ah, my sweet son!”

“You deserve love too. Have you found a man with a zest for life?”

“One: your uncle Carl. Too bad he’s my brother.”

When he hesitated, she chuckled slightly. “Don’t tell me you want to
suggest one.”

“Well …”

“I can think of one other myself, though he may be a bit _too_ zesty!”

“Do I know him?”

“Perhaps too well.”

“Huh?”

“I’m thinking of your Uncle Bernie.” At that surprising announcement
she pushed him back to look into his eyes. “Despite his den of
iniquity.” She bit her lip. “Tell me your honest opinion, Sammy: would
he make you a good step-father?”