"What a waste of a summer," I grumbled to myself.
I was in my car, driving to my Aunt Winifred's house. At 18 years of age and newly graduated, I was anxious to spend my summer blowing through my graduation money, lounging around the house, and hanging out with my friends before we all went off to college, but, unfortunately, my mom had other plans. She wanted to get me out of the house for an entire month, no doubt to make sure my bedroom would be able to be repurposed into either a crafts room, or a man cave for my dad.
So, they arranged for me to spend the entire month of June at my mom's younger sister's house. She lived all by herself in a nice community, and my mom told her that it would be nice for her to have a strong, young man in the house to keep it looking nice and to make her feel safe; she thought that it wasn't right for a woman to be by herself, when she could be robbed, raped, killed, or possibly all three. I'd pretty much be spending my time doing chores and keeping creeps away.
As I neared her home, I thought of my childhood memories of Aunt Winifred. She was that crazy aunt that every family has, the one that goes through men like tissues. She'd had four husbands, and an endless procession of boyfriends, all of whom, at one point or another, I had called uncle. My least favorite had been Uncle Travis, her second husband, who came straight out of a trailer park; I didn't miss his shifty eyes, his tobacco breath, and his frequent visits to jail. The Uncle I missed the most was Uncle Eddie, one of her boyfriends who loved taking me and my siblings and cousins out to the park, buying us great gifts, and telling us great bedtime stories.
The one thing that I remembered the most about my visits to Aunt Winifred's house was something that I never realized until I got a bit older: Aunt Winifred was a sex maniac.
Granted, it was one of the worst-kept secrets in our family, but it was one that I had apparently learned as soon as I was old enough to know about sex. Every so often, when my parents sent me to visit her children for sleepovers, I would hear moaning and screaming from down the hall. I remember thinking that whenever she screamed "Fuck me", that it was the name of some game that she was playing in her bedroom, like Red Rover. A funny nickname was circulated between my cousins and siblings who were aware of Aunt Winnie's penchant for being a howler in the sack: Aunt Wolfy. I was tickled when I heard the nickname being used by some of my other aunts and uncles.
Now, at the age of 45, she lived by herself; her children had all moved out, she never got remarried, and she could barely hold down a man...that last statement put a very interesting image in my head. I was just hoping that she wouldn't be shacking up with any guys in there. I warned my mom that if she had one of her sex friends in the house, I was out of there faster than a rabbi at an all-you-can-eat shellfish buffet.
I pulled into the driveway of her home, a large, two-story house that she had lived in for the last 21 years. I heaved a sigh as I unloaded my bags and walked up to the front door. She appeared at the door, holding a bottle of Mike's Hard Lemonade and looking a bit disheveled, but otherwise amazing.
My aunt had wavy brown hair with a few strands of gray that fell gracefully to her shoulders, and a face with barely any wrinkles or crow's feet. Clad in a floral-patterned sundress, her curvaceous body was well-displayed to me. She had nice, slim hips, toned arms and legs, and two lovely breasts that hung gracefully from her chest. It was only for a few seconds, but I noticed the two hard pegs poking through the bustline of her dress. My mind automatically said, "She really must have the AC cranked up in the house."
"Sammy!" she yelled exuberantly. "My, you've grown like a weed!" She opened her arms wide, and I walked towards her to give her a big hug, trying not to think about her hard nipples poking me in the chest. "Looks like you're all mine for the summer, huh?"
"It's just for a month, Aunt Winnie," I told her.
"Of course, of course," she said with a smile. "Come on inside here, boy."
Aunt Winnie led me into the house, which was extremely untidy. In every room I could see tons of half-empty bottles and cups of liquor, lots of boxes, various magazines, and pieces of mail. Aunt Winnie explained that even though she was very well off - thanks to a sizeable inheritance from my grandparents, and money she had gained from some of her past divorces – she wasn't a really organized person. She didn't know how to cook, and had no motivation whatsoever to keep her house clean. To her credit, she paid some a lawn service to maintain her lawn for an entire year, and had hired an accountant to pay her bills, but, hadn't bothered to hire a housekeeper or cleaning service to keep her home in order for her. She told me that she'd try to arrange for her home to be cleaned, but was extremely forgetful, so she never followed through; my mom explained in the past that this was due to her either being drunk, asleep, or in bed with some guy.
Aunt Winnie led me upstairs to a room that once belonged to my cousin Todd. She told me that he had moved out years ago, and seldom visited; all of his childhood belongings had been packed into numerous boxes. The only furniture in the room was a bed, a desk, and an office chair.
"I hope this room is okay," she said. "One of your jobs will be to ship all of this shit to your cousin. I have his address...somewhere."
"It's okay," I told her. "I can call and ask him."
"That's good, because, apparently, I'm not one of his favorite people right now. I think he's mad because I got a bit friendly with one of his friends from college a few years ago."
"How sad," I said flatly.
"Well, let me lay down some ground rules. First, you feed yourself."
"That's okay," I assured her. "I can cook."
"Good," she said. "Your mom told me that she gave you $500 for food money, but if you can whip up some good meals for the both of us, I'll spot you some cash. Second, I don't care if you drink or smoke weed, but make sure you don't leave the house when you're drunk or high. I will disavow any knowledge of your activities if you get arrested."
I couldn't help but smile, "I don't smoke weed, but I will admit to kicking back a drink or two."
"Good," Aunt Winnie said, pinching my cheek. "Lastly, I know your mom said that all you'd be doing is helping me out around the house, but I'm...cool." To my surprise, she didn't sound uncool when she said it. "Just clean one room of the house each day, and you can spend the rest of the day doing whatever you want. By my math, you should be done in about ten days."
"Fine with me."
After I settled into my room, I started off my labor by loading all of Cousin Todd's boxes into my car and taking them to the UPS store to be shipped, and then stopped at Subway for some lunch. When I got back to the house, I vacuumed, dusted, and cleaned the bedroom and bathroom, which helped me get done with room number one on my very first day.
