the kitchen door as well and took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and drank it down.
She undressed and climbed into bed with her son.
He slept as though dead. Worn out. Too much sex. Not a man, simply a boy with a man's genitals. She caressed his cock. The ropy limpness of it provided nothing to hearten her.
She turned from him. Soon her pillow was wet with tears.
She needed help. She simply could not do it all alone.
The day was already hot when Sonny awoke alone in his mother's bed.
The clock said ten. He got up feeling groggy, wandered out to the kitchen and found a note from her on the table, saying, 'Sleepyhead! I've gone to work. Buy steak and tomatoes. Money in drawer.'
He made breakfast and ate, thinking back over their crazy weekend of fucking. Where had Mother gone last night? He had awakened, watched a night ball game on TV for an hour, then went back to sleep.
Done eating he put on a pair of shorts and went out and sat on the back steps.
He saw Lily's white t-shirt moving about the greenhouse.
She must be mad as hell. She would probably throw a trowel at him. Well, he had to kind of explain. He angled across the lawn to the gap of the hedge and entered the greenhouse. It was steamy and Lily's tits were blackened by florists earth.
He sauntered to the aisle where she was seeding a flat. He leaned against a bench.
He said, 'Lily, I'm awful sorry.'
She gazed at him, shrugged. 'Sorry for what?'
'Well, my mother had so many things to do.'
'The way you're tangled in her apron strings, I bet you have trouble opening your fly to pee unless she tells you which way to zip.'
He saw that she was wearing a bra, the way her titties protruded and did not dip or bob when she moved. He guessed that was to spite him.
Anyhow, she cared enough what he thought to wear a bra when he preferred her without.
He said, 'Lily, I feel the same about you. I mean, you know how my mother is, I just had to go off with her Saturday, and then yesterday-'
'I haven't been lonesome,' she snapped. 'Well, I know you were busy, especially with me not here to help transplant.'
'I mean, you haven't got the only prick in town.'
She said it harshly but turned away, to hide a blush, he saw.
He pondered her meaning. As far as he had been able to keep track of her, she had been home all weekend.
Did she mean her father?
He would have to think about that. He said, 'Let me sprinkle the dirt on after you seed.'
'I can do it myself.'
But when he took the trowel and began scooping dirt on the flat she had seeded, she moved to the next flat and began seeding it.
At the office Kit buried her troubles in work until mid-morning, when Myra phoned.
'It's all your fault, you bitch!' Myra screeched. 'Myra, this is a switchboard phone. Be careful what you say.'
'He blacked my eye. I have ice cubes on it but it's all blue and ugly. What do you mean by stranding me miles from home? That's why he beat me up.
Kit could not make sense of it. She had seen Don an hour before, his eyes red and his face puffy from booze. Apparently he had gotten drunk- Myra was simply looking for somebody to blame things on.
Kit said, 'You found your car, didn't you?' 'Yes, Grace drove me, but listen, you cunt lapping bitch, I'll get even-'
Kit hung up.
Shortly Myra was on the phone again, quieter now. 'Darling, it was all groovy, wasn't it? And listen, Grace is madly in love with you-'
Kit dropped the receiver once more. She buzzed the switchboard girl and told her that if any woman called, no matter whom, she was not in the office.
But just before noon a man called her.
It was Harry, her ex-husband, saying, 'I want to have lunch with you, right now. I'm at Barney's, the place your office gang goes to.'
Kit was startled. Harry lived in a town some twenty miles away. She had not spoken to him in three or four years.
She said, 'I'm terribly busy, Harry.'
His voice became a snarl. 'You better get your ass down here.'
The receiver clicked. He knew something! Kit immediately thought of Myra. Had she phoned Harry?
Fortunately her boss had gone to lunch. She hurried out to Barney's and found Harry sitting in a booth drinking beer. He was a lean, blondish man, a larger version of Sonny, looking a bit jowly, she thought, but still attractive, and prosperous, to judge from his clothing.
Except for the anger in his eyes, he seemed utterly bland, merely the shell of the man she had once loved. She felt absolutely nothing for him.
But her belly quaked with fear.
He said stiffly, 'You were always a whore, Kit. But not perverted, at least not that I knew of.'
'Harry, you're being a bore.' Her voice sounded feeble, she thought.
'Divorce law is such that I have a right to intervene in matters that affect Sonny.'
Myra must have called him. But there was another possibility. He was an insurance adjuster and often worked with private detectives in investigating fires, thefts, and the like. Could he have someone spying on her?
She said, 'You might tell me what I'm guilty of, Harry.'
His eyes narrowed. He poured the last of his beer, gulped it down, and rose.
'I was going to have lunch here but you turn my stomach, you and your sluttish look, like a whorehouse blowjob expert. No, I won't tell you what part of your filthy sex life to cover up. You'll learn that in court if it comes to that.'
With this threat, he strode out of the place.
Kit sat with tears streaming down her face.
She needed help, needed it desperately.
Lily found the greenhouse work proceeding rapidly. Sonny worked, so well with her that it was like having four hands.
And he had such lovely brown eyes!
It was a hot day and her undies kept her breasts and crotch steamy. Not the sweet steaminess of sex but hasty, wet, itchy. She tugged her bra, trying to let some air in. Sonny saw the movement. That infuriated her. But she could not go indoors and get rid of the undies. She had to spite him.
Thus she suffered until they finished. Then she thanked him grudgingly and went indoors and got out of her mucky clothes and into the shower.
It restored her spirits. Coolly naked, she hustled about the kitchen preparing Daddy's supper, something he loved, pot roast and potato salad. While boiling potatoes she fingered her Nat. It was soft and damp, her hole quite open. It should be, after the reaming it had taken from Daddy's big cock yesterday.
It was a tiny bit sore but she hoped to have a cuntful within five minutes of his arrival home from his hated work as an accountant.
She planned to greet him like a wife. What to wear? She would absolutely not be in t-shirt and denim skirt. She riffled through the dresses in her closet, chose a featherweight print, a faint amber design on ivory. Trying it on she liked the way it hugged her breasts but the skirt was too long. She got out her sewing kit and went to work, snipping off six inches, basting, modeling it, cutting again. When it was finally sewed and pressed the skirt hem was a half-inch below her crotch. Her cunt hair would show if they were dry and fluffy but not if flattened by cunt juice.
