Back home after our 2 weeks at the beach house, mother called us both into the kitchen. I had a feeling of dread and looked at Richard nervously. Something in her voice told me this wouldn't be good. Dad had gone to work and mother sat, staring down at the table for a long time. My feeling of dread increased. Without looking up she said "I know what you've been doing."
"Oh God!" said Richard and he slumped down in his chair covering his eyes with his hands.
"What are you talking about?" I said, ignoring how my feeble bluff had been trumped by Richard's exclamation.
She lifted her head a looked me in the eyes. "I'm not blind, I know what you've been doing".
"Oh God!" Richard said again.
"Mom..." But I didn't really have anything to say so I let my voice trail off.
"Well you couldn't have been any more obvious, playing footsie under the table, holding hands under a blanket in the back seat, doing dishes together?"
"Oh God!"
"Richard will you stop that!" we both said.
She was right, I loved kicking off my sandals and rubbing his bare foot with my own under the dinner table. And I guess it was obvious when we started doing the dishes together instead of on alternate nights as we always had. We would make out in the kitchen. Once I even masturbated him through his pants, finishing only a few seconds before daddy came in for a beer.
"Now listen to me. I'm not mad at you. In some ways I guess it was inevitable, you kids have been inseparable almost since birth. You always got along so well. And when you reached puberty, the signs were obvious; the way you looked at each other, always wanting to be together instead of going out with others of the opposite sex. You've always loved each other and love can't be wrong; the heart wants what the heart wants. It won't be denied. Don't ever be ashamed or afraid to love. But you've got to be more careful. Your father has been distracted for most of the year, worrying about his job, and I worry about him. But I don't know how even he could miss some of your antics. And it would kill him to find out."
"But...you're...not...mad?" I said, disbelieving.
"No I'm not mad." she sighed. "'the faces of love are many and varied' I think I read that somewhere. I But I am concerned. And scared for you. I don't think you know how dangerous this is. You must be much more careful, it has to be private, people won't understand and they can be cruel, very cruel. But like I said, I don't want you to be ashamed of your love. Love is never wrong. And I know that you love each other. I don't want to see you end up like your uncle Jack and me.
It took me a second to understand that last statement.
"wait, what? You and uncle Jack?"
"That's right." she said with a tired sigh. "I loved him but he didn't love me. And now he hates me and he's ashamed to come near me. That's why we never see him or hear from him." Richard and I stared at each other.
Later that day I came and knocked on mom's open bedroom door. She was reading one of her Romance novels, the kind with a cover painting typically of a bare-chested pirate holding a buxom woman with a torn bodice, the ocean heaving below them and a storm baring down. She knew they were trash but they distracted her. They turned her on too I imagined.
"Mom?"
She looked over her book, "Come on in sweetheart," she said marking her place and putting the book aside. "sit down" and she patted the edge of the bed.
