[This tale involves themes of mother/son incest. If such material offends you, please don't read further. All characters are eighteen years of age or older. Comments and voting are most appreciated.
Stop Means Stop
Spring, 1963
The pendulum in the clock made a crisp metallic click with each swing. It was an antique regulator that had to be tightened with a key every morning. It was hanging in our kitchen for as long as I could remember...yet, this was the first time I would recall hearing that empty, measured noise.
I sat there hunched over in my chair, trying to listen to the muffled conversation my parents and the cop were having in the living room. Just bits of words registered...the cop's monotone voice and my father's agitated verbal parries.
The clock struck eleven and the chime struck eleven times.
...doom...doom...doom...
After a few minutes the cop swung the door open, his face deeply lined and purposely grim.
"This time you get a break, mainly 'cause of your folks here," he growled. "Anything like it ever happens again and you'll be sittin' your ass in a cell....Clear?"
"Answer the officer," my father snapped as he came up behind the cop.
"Yes."
"And thank him," he went on.
"Thank..."
"I don't need no 'thank you', son," the cop cut in roughly, jabbing a finger my way for emphasis. "Just don't ever let it happen again. And keep your ass clear of the girl. I don't want you even giving her so much as a hello."
With that he turned and the door swung back and forth across the void.
I sat there and sank my face into my hands, hearing the front door close and then the police cruiser's engine starting. The cop had pulled into our driveway with the light flashing...our nosy neighbors no doubt seeing him amble up to our front door.
The door was shoved open with a crash and my father stood there glaring at me, the veins taut in his neck. He was so furious he was shaking...he lurched forward, his mouth working, working...
"What is wrong with you? Damn it, I want an answer!"
"David, not now," my mother interjected, stepping into the doorway and setting a steadying hand on her husband's shoulder.
Her voice was pure frost, her posture stonily erect as always.
"Police come to our house with the lights on telling us he's a..."
"Not now. Not tonight."
"Perverted tendencies," my father muttered. "I gotta hear that from a police officer sitting in our goddamned living room."
"David, go to bed. Have a drink first."
"I don't need a drink."
"Yes you do, and so do I. We'll address this tomorrow when we are both calmer."
My father nodded finally and with one last scathing glance at me he turned and stomped away.
"I'm sorry..."
"Shut your mouth and go to bed. And stay there," she hissed. Anger and ice...no one could pour them together quite like my mother. "Don't come out tomorrow either. Stay in there until I come and get you."
I felt her eyes following me as I stood and went up the stairs to my room. From the top tier I glanced down and saw that flinty unbending focus.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
I had risen early that morning and stayed in bed as ordered. I thought of last night and draped my forearm across my eyes.
Karen Hall was no fucking beauty...that was for sure. Not even decently stacked. We'd been dating since the end of January...and I gotta admit I asked her out only because I heard she fucked. And unlike so much lewd high school gossip, she actually did. I'd fucked her for a total of seventeen times since March when she finally came across...yes, I kept an exact tabulation...and every time she acted like she was opening the pearly gates for me. Looking back on this through nearly five decades of experience, she was a truly one lousy lay.
But when you're a horned up eighteen year old, who'd had maybe five furtive handjobs up until then...tapping that pussy with my Trogen wrapped dick was just a few wondrous clicks from nirvana.
Then last night...Jesus, what the fuck was I thinking...
I heard my father's car backing out of the garage and got out of bed. A watched his Buick until it disappeared down the street. I felt bewildered that he hadn't come up to speak to me...and then the icy realization that my mother would be the one to rip into me snaked down my spine. My mother had never struck me, not once...but, yes I was as intimidated by her as anyone could possibly be.
The knock on my door was crisp and came just a few minutes after my father left.
"Are you up?"
"...Yeah."
"Then shower and get dressed. I'll be waiting in the den."
I heard her march down the hallway, then down the stairs.
"Christ," I muttered, for some reason seeing the ragged seam of Karen's dress flapping across her back as she bolted from my car and half-staggered up the sidewalk to her front porch. Spinning in that last second as her fucking mom opened the door, her ruined mascara ringed in horrible smudges.
I showered and got dressed. My stomach turned sourly.
I went downstairs and stood outside the den, a sunken room where our television was.
My mother snapped her fingers and pointed my ass towards the couch. I sat like a cowed dog.
"Mother, I'm..."
"Please keep your mouth closed. Not a word."
My mother...Mother, never Mom, not once...was, as always, perfectly coifed. Her dress was an old one she'd wear around the house, perfectly ironed with thin bluish stripes. The hem came just below her knees. Her greying hair was braided tautly, her makeup minimal and perfectly done. The soft beige loafers she wore were her house shoes...she never set foot outside except in heels.
"Your father and I decided that I should handle this situation," she said after a moment. Which meant that she had "told" my father that this was how it was going to be handled. She stepped to the window and looked outside as she went on.
"First, I want to know if you understand the potential peril you've put yourself in, to say nothing of the embarrassment you've caused our family."
"I know it was..."
"Do you realize that you could go to jail...to prison."
"I didn't do anything."
"No, you just went crazy and tried to rip your girlfriends dress off and rape her." Her phrasing was clipped...a rapid fire staccato indictment.
"That's not what happened."
"Was her dress torn?"
I didn't answer.
"Was her dress torn?" she repeated, stretching out each syllable. I saw my mother's shoulders rippling beneath the dress. She straightened herself even more.
"...Yes."
"I would say that that's a prelude to rape. Your father is an attorney, shall I phone him to confirm that?"
"...No."
"Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I would speculate that you and this girl were doing something
arousing
, and at some point she balked as to going further and you...
She turned and met my eyes.
"Did she ask you to stop?...Did she make the word 'stop' come out of her mealy mouth?"