Sue Johnson was tired and relieved. Tired, because her personal trainer, the one Cara had arranged, the one who demanded she visit the gym five times a week, had insisted on a particularly grueling workout 'because you have the weekend to rest.' And she was relieved, relieved because her daughter had surprised her. Tonight they were going to stay in and have popcorn and a movie; she wouldn't have to shop, to spend hours with a hairdresser, or do all the other things her daughter had insisted, maniacally insisted she do over the past two weeks. 'You need a break, mum,' Cara had said, matter of factly, and Susan agreed.
So after dinner, with popcorn for desert, Susan spread out on the couch while Cara slipped in the video before sitting down in the chair beside her.
"What are we watching?" asked Susan Johnson, not really caring. She hadn't seen a decent movie in years.
"You'll see," said Cara cryptically.
And she did. At first she thought it was a grade C romance — the music was tinny, the actors wooden and the dialogue stupid, but after only a few minutes she recognized it for what it was, pornography. She looked over at Cara, more confused then shocked, "Is this what I think it is?"
Cara smiled mischievously, "Have you ever seen one."
"No, of course not," she said getting to her feet, "and I'm not going to start now."
"OK, Mum," Cara said, getting to her feet. "You don't have to, I'll turn it off." She pushed the eject button on the VCR then said, "I'll see you later."
"Later?" Susan Johnson looked at her daughter, "Where are you going?"
"I think I'll go over to Tim's house, or John's or Peter's."
"But why? It's getting late?"
Cara held up the video, "To watch this! I wanted to see it, I've never seen one before and if you don't want to watch it with me, I will find somebody who will." Then she added with a sly grin, "but, frankly, mum, I would have thought a responsible parent would prefer that her impressionable daughter watch films like this in the safety of her own home and with parental control and supervision." She turned to leave.
"Cara ..."
Cara turned back. "What?" she responded innocently.
"That's blackmail."
"Is it?" Cara hesitated for a moment, then said, "Well, call it what you will. I have never seen a porn flick before and I want to, you have never seen a porn flick before and it's about time you did. I thought we could watch it together. Call it a bonding experience, but if you're going to throw me to the wolves, throw me to John ..."
Susan grabbed the video from her daughter's hand and shoved it into the VCR then went back to the couch, sat down and looked sternly at her daughter, as if she was about to do some entirely against her will. And when Cara looked back at her with a look of defiant determination, Susan Johnson felt a flash of warmth course through her body, a hot bolt of love: I was never that bright and alive when I was 19, nor as devious, she thought, marveling at the girl who filled her life with so much joy.
They watched the film in silence. The first 15 minutes was a composite of multi-angled shots, fixated on a single fluid motion, the in and out of copulation. It was a film almost fit for biology class. The second section was longer and very different. Two women, they could have been mother and daughter, discovered an interest in each other's bodies, slowly, passionately, exquisitely. It was near the end of the segment when Cara realized that she had been rubbing her crotch through her jeans and it was near the end, too, when she noticed that her mother's breathing was unusually loud. And then it was over and the overly muscled man, and the impossibly bosomed woman were at it again, as if they hadn't stopped, as if they were being paid by the stroke, in and out, in and out, God, Cara thought, do I have to look forward to a lifetime of that?
"So that's fucking, eh?" Cara pressed the rewind button. "Frankly, mum, it doesn't look like something I'll be all that excited about."
"No," said her mother, with a little relief, "I don't blame you. That wasn't the best advertisements for having kids."
Cara looked at her mother out of the corner of her eye, "But the women were hot."
Silence.
"I said the women were hot."
Silence.
"Mum, I said the women were hot," and she looked directly and inquisitively at her mother.
Her mother smiled and said nothing.
"I'm going to watch that part again."
"Fine," said her mother getting up, "I'm going to bed."
"I wonder which part John will like?" The words were quiet and packed with what sounded like genuine curiosity.
"Cara, really. You wanted me to watch it, I did. I don't have to watch it time and time again."
"Did you feel anything?" Cara watched her mother closely and when she shook her head, she knew she was lying. "The Lesbians? Ya," Cara didn't wait for her mother to say anything, "me too, that's why I want us to see it again." Cara smiled to herself when her mother sat back down, needing no more convincing.
They were pretty, the dark haired one with the glasses and the small perky breasts and the larger, blond woman with the big breasts and the pleasantly insistent aggression. Neither would turn a head, thought Cara, but what they were doing to each other, now that was hot, so hot that she quietly undid the top button of her jeans and silently pulled down the zipper and opened her legs. She wasn't at all surprised at how wet she was. "Do you masturbate, mum?"
Her mother's mind was elsewhere, "What, dear?"
"Do you masturbate?"
The answer was barely audible and there was a slight note of disappointment. "No."
Cara took her hand from her panties and sat up in her chair and turned and looked at her mother, "No? Never?"
Sue Johnson didn't look at her daughter and didn't respond.
"Did you ever?"
