“Three times,” she told me readily, adding, “and he's the only boy I've ever eaten raw…”
“Kathy! Where in the world did you get that expression?”
“Oh… that,” she laughed at my tone of voice, “The kids say it at school. Like if you want to tell a guy to get lost, you say, 'Aw… eat me raw.' Everybody knows what it means.”
“And… have any boys done that to you?” I found myself inquiring.
“No… no boys,” she said, seeming to emphasize the last word, then deciding to tell me all, “but there was a man… a real beautiful man. Oh, I know it sounds terrible, but it really wasn't. Joby Clark, he's the big disc jockey back home. I used to call him up in the afternoons and talk and yak, and so he asked me for a date.
“I… I kind of knew he was married. But Joby Clark! My gosh, Mother, any girl would die to have a date with Joby Clark. I met him down at the station that afternoon when he signed oft the lights, and I was dancing there in the dark with Joby Clark.
“He told me what a pretty girl he thought I was. Oh, Mother, the music was just all over the studio. It was super! And when he said how he liked my legs… his hands were on my legs. I… I couldn't see what he was doing until I felt him kissing my legs, up, up, up… and then zoo-oom! Oo-oh, I just about flipped!”
“Well, I think that's enough for tonight,” I stopped her, feeling very uneasy and frustrated, “Let's try to go to sleep now, and we can talk some more about it tomorrow.”
“Mother… are you going to make love with Ricky again?”
“Of course not,” I answered sharply, really upset by any talk of the idea. “1 don't think he'll be coming around here again. You… the two of you never talked about me, did you?”
“No,” Kathy replied, “But I wish he had told me more about you on the phone.”
“Why?”
“I'd like to know how good a lover you really are…”
When I told Bob what had happened the next day, he was furious. He called me all kinds filthy names for having had an affair with one of my students. But I realize now that the main point of his anger was caused by jealousy. It absolutely infuriated him that some other male, and particularly “some little punk schoolkid,” had been the first to enjoy both mother and daughter.
I should have realized then that there would be trouble. I should never have told Bob at all about the situation with Kathy. But I too had to have someone to talk with. And I was afraid to confide too many of my fears and problems to Kathy.
In the back of my mind, the suspicions grew every time I was out and there was a possibility that Bob and Kathy were alone together. I found myself watching each one closely for any change of attitude toward me, or each other. The only thing I could detect was that Kathy felt closer to me now. She talked to me more openly each time we were together.
One morning when Bob was out, she told me about her new boyfriend that she had met at the tennis court. I knew who he was, a very popular senior, and I was pleased that she was dating him. When she insisted upon giving me the intimate details of their activities the night before, I listened, but I felt strange about it. There was something morbid in a daughter feeling so compelled to tell her mother just everything.
“Mother, he just went wild over my tits!” she exclaimed, and I also wished she would use less slang. “He said they were the biggest and most beautiful he'd ever seen and that included some of these movie stars that pose in the nude for the men's magazines. I'd never liked doing it in the car before, but he knew this crazy, crazy way where I sat on his legs facing him with my knees up in the seat and boy did that have pz-zazz!”
“Kathy… you can't just continue to go around having relations with every boy you date,” I had finally had enough, and I was ready to speak out. “Nobody will have any respect for you. How can you expect to find a decent man to fall in love with, to marry… if you have relations with every man or boy you date?”
“What difference will it make?” she threw her arms out in a gesture of uncaring. “I'm not going to marry anyone from high school. Father's going to send me to college or to business school, whichever I want. I'll meet new people there and take it a little slower. Besides, in college, or if you're working, it's not like you're a kid anymore. They expect you to have a love life…”
And that was the way it went. If anything, Kathy seemed to mature more in her relationship with Bob. She was not constantly provoking him or sitting in his lap like she did before. And I credited this to her more open relationship with me, as well as, I am afraid, her outside interests with the boy she was dating.
I knew that I was sitting on a powder keg that was bound to explode, but I did not know when, where or how. I found myself drinking so much more, particularly that following weekend. Bob and I were sitting in the den looking at T-V. He was calm and casual, concentrating on the program.
I was tied in knots. I wanted him to make love to me, but I knew that if I asked him outright or even acted like I wanted him to, he would enjoy teasing me to distraction without giving me satisfaction. Kathy was not there to inspire him. She was out on a date with Wayne again.
It was after midnight when the door chimes sounded. I know it was that late because I had looked at the clock when I frantically thought I had finished the last bottle of scotch a few minutes earlier. Fortunately, I found that I had two more in the supply closet.
Bob answered the door and I heard him say, “No, officer, I'm not. But the girl's mother is here.”
“What is it… is it Kathy? Has something happened?” I asked in fright, struggling up from seat and stumbling over the ottoman as I made my way unsteadily toward the door. “Where is my daughter?”
“She's right here, ma'am,” a young town policeman announced, and then I saw Kathy standing sheepishly beside him. “It is my duty to tell you that we found your daughter parked in a car with one Wayne Hoffman out by Barney's Lake. At the time I flashed my light inside, they were disrobed from the waist down. Both my partner and I can testify that a sexual connection was taking place…
“Oh… oh, no!” I was genuinely shocked at the news coming to me in this form, although I knew what had been going on between them. “What… are you going to do?”
“Well, ma'am,” the officer remarked less formally now, motioning me to step outside with him where Kathy could not hear. “The Hoffman boy is 18 and your daughter is 17, Mrs. Bryant. If you wanted to press the matter, I'm sure Judge Farnsworth would take our testimony.”
“And… if I don't?” I asked him uncertainly.
“It's up to you, ma'am. They're both youngsters, really. Maybe it's the best things for the parents to handle it.”
“Yes… I believe I can take care of this,” I told him with a smile. “And… I want to thank you so very much.”
“I hope you realize, Kathy… just how much of a child you are!” Bob was lecturing her sternly as she sat cowed on the sofa in the den. “I have tried to be a father to you while you are here with your mother. I have given you the love and affection that a child expects from a parent. Is this not true, Kathy?”
“Yes… yes, you've been wonderful to me,” she sobbed, looking at me as if to ask if I approved of Bob exerting authority like this. “You and Mother… have been very good to me.”
“Perhaps we have been too good,” he stated, standing before her with hands on hips. “I think it is not too late to take some disciplinary measures.”
I cringed when I heard him say that. I wanted to cry out and ask him to leave it all to me. I knew that talking to Kathy was the only thing that could do any good now. But I felt so powerless. I was still reeling from all the scotch I had consumed, and I felt like downing more. When I saw Bob unbuckle his belt and whip it out of his trousers, I finally did speak out. “No… no, Bob!” I screamed, grabbing him y the arm. “You can't whip a 17-year-old girl, Bob. Leave her alone!”
“She's been left alone too much, Denise! That's the trouble. Sit down!”
Bob pushed me down in the chair as he brought his belt across Kathy's legs hard. She screamed and jumped up as I sat there too dumbfounded to speak or do anything. Suddenly jerking her to him by the arm, Bob turned her around, grabbed her around the waist and slumped her across my legs.
Kathy seemed too terrified to cry out anymore. As for myself, I merely watched in horror while Bob yanked her skirt and slip to her waist and literally tore her panties off, laying bare her buttocks. She jumped and whined at the first crack of the belt across her flesh, then screamed and cried out in pain as the blows continued, pressing and twisting her body against my thighs, grabbing on to my ankle and begging for mercy.
