Cutler - Midnight Whipsers Part 38

"You'd sleep through an earthquake," Aunt Fern told him. "After you've drunk old whiskey all night, that is," she added and they both laughed and started tickling each other, behaving like two children again. Then Aunt Fern realized I was staring at them.

"Why are you still hanging around?" she cried at me.

"Get me the coffee," she ordered hotly.

I hurried out and downstairs again. I made her fresh coffee, but I made it so strong that Gavin said it could melt iron. Now that he was fully awake, Jefferson insisted on coming along with me, but when I returned to the master suite, I found the doors closed and thought I had better knock.

"Just a minute," I heard Aunt Fern say in a breathless voice. Then I heard some moans, followed by short cries of pleasure.

"The coffee's getting cold, Aunt Fern," I shouted through the door. I knew what they were doing and was embarra.s.sed for both myself and Jefferson. "Should 1 come back in a little while?"

Instead of an answer, I heard her cries come faster and louder, followed by one long moan.

"What's happening to Aunt Fern?" Jefferson asked.

"She doesn't feel too well, Jefferson. Why don't you go back downstairs and finish your breakfast and then come up to say h.e.l.lo, okay."

He shrugged and went off. A moment later, Aunt Fern cried, "Enter."

I opened the doors. She had the blanket up to her chin. Her face was flushed, her hair wild. Morton was lying there with his eyes closed, a smirk of satisfaction on his face.

"Here's your fresh coffee," I said. Aunt Fern smiled at me and sat up.

"Good." She took hers and handed Morton his.

Then she turned back to me. "Get a little bit of an education out there?" she asked. Had she no dignity?

No self-respect? "I bet you had your little ear plastered against the door, didn't you? Or were you watching through the crack in the door?"

"Hardly, Aunt Fern," I said. "I was very uncomfortable."

"Oh come on. You've obviously lost your precious virginity here," she said. I s.h.i.+fted my gaze to Morton who was hovering over his coffee, his eyes on me with interest.

"Aunt Fern!"

She threw her head back and laughed.

"Stop being the little pure princess," she said.

"You're no better than I am."

"I never said I was, Aunt Fern, but . . ."

"Actually, I'm glad you're grown up. If I feel like it and I'm in the mood . . . and if you're real nice to me,"

she added, "maybe I'll give you some hints about men and s.e.x," she said.

Morton laughed. "I want to be around to hear that," he said.

"Like h.e.l.l you will. This is female talk. You can't let them have their way with you," she told me.

"Aunt Fern, I'd rather not . . ."

"Sure, sure," she said. "I know. You're still too delicate. All right, draw my bath. Make it warm, but not too hot. Well, go on, stop gawking at me," she said, sipping her coffee.

I went in the bathroom and turned on the water.

When it was ready, I told her and started away.

"Wait a minute, where are you going?" she demanded.

"Down to have my breakfast," I said.

"Well first, I'd like you to help me take a bath.

I'd like my back washed and then my hair. Come on,"

she ordered. Totally naked, she got out of bed and marched into the bathroom. I looked at Morton, who smiled licentiously at me. "The water's just right,"

Aunt Fern said and got into the tub. I was afraid that at any moment, Morton might get out of bed naked too, so I returned to the bathroom and closed the door.

Aunt Fern handed me the washcloth. "Do my back in small circles. I like my shoulders rubbed, too," she said.

I washed her back and then put the soap in her hair and began to shampoo it.

"Oh, that's good," she said, lying back in the tub. "You make a good servant, princess," she said.

"Aunt Fern, can you please stop calling me princess? I'm not a princess and never was," I said.

"Oh you-were all right. You were spoiled rotten."

"That's not true," I insisted. "I worked in the hotel as soon as I was old enough to help out. And I always looked after Jefferson when my parents wanted me to."

"I know you're just perfect," she muttered and then seized my wrist and pulled me down beside her.

"Tell me about your love affair with my little brother?

Is he . . . was he very experienced? I can't imagine him knowing where to put it."

"Stop it, Aunt Fern," I said and pulled my wrist free. "Gavin is a nice boy, yes, but that doesn't make him a weakling or less of a man."

"Man?" she said, eyes wide. "You have had s.e.x with him then, haven't you?" she asked. I had to s.h.i.+ft my eyes and the moment I did so, it confirmed everything for her. "It's all right," she said. "I won't go around telling people. You think I care that much anyway?" She paused and sat back in the water. "I was just curious, that's all. How was your first time?"

"Aunt Fern, I don't like talking about these things," I said.

"Oh come on. Don't tell me you and your little girlfriends didn't talk about these things whenever you could? Did your mother ever talk to you or did she die before she had a chance to do the birds and the bees act?" she asked.

"Mommy and I were very close," I replied. "I didn't have to sneak off to find out things."

"Really? I'm curious. What did she tell you?"

She smirked. "Did she tell you what you should and shouldn't do? Did she explain how you keep from getting pregnant or did she tell you to simply say no?"

"We talked about love and about s.e.x, yes," I said. "Love," she said, smirking again.

"Aren't you in love with Morton?" I asked.

"Are you serious? Morton? He's just a good time." She leaned forward. "And easy to manipulate, you know what I mean?" I didn't. "He does whatever I want him to do. He never argues and if I don't feel like it, he doesn't moan and groan and go off in a huff."

"But . . . you're acting like husband and wife with him," I said.

"Oh princess, you kill me. I've acted like husband and wife many times before," she confessed.

"How many?" I asked.

"Oh, curious now, huh?"

I was curious. I wanted to understand Aunt Fern, to see why she was so loose with her body and if she ever truly enjoyed herself. She acted happy on her own, defiant, wild, but was she happy?

"You want to know about my first time?" she asked. I didn't say yes, but she sat forward and went on. "I was fourteen. There was this boy I liked who was seventeen."

"Seventeen!"

"Yes, and he wouldn't even glance at me. I never did anything before, really, but I read a lot about it and looked at those books with pictures. So one day, I went up to him and whispered in his ear.

He turned red as a beet but got very interested in me."

"What did you whisper?"

"I asked him if he wanted to go around the world with me."

"What did that mean?" I asked in a whisper.

"To tell you the truth, princess, I wasn't sure, but it went over big. A few days later, I had an opportunity to be alone with him. He was very upset because it was obvious it was my first time."

"What did he do?"

"Nothing. He never so much as spoke to me after that," she said.

"But didn't you feel terrible?"

She shrugged.

"He wasn't as nice as I thought and I wasn't interested in him anymore."

"But what about what you had done?"

"It had to happen sometime," she said nonchalantly.

"But if you don't really care about the person .

"Don't care about anybody," she said. "You're better off."

"No you're not, Aunt Fern. You're all alone when you care only about yourself," I fired back. She glared at me.

"I forgot, you're Mrs. Perfect's daughter. Your mother wasn't so perfect, you know," she said. "That's how you came into the world."

"I know all about it," I replied quickly, before she could add any more cruel things. "I even visited my real father."

"You did? And?"

"He might have been a handsome, charming man once, but to me he was . . he was a n.o.body," I said. "Ugly and weak."

"Um. Still, I would like to see what the man who swept Mrs. Perfect of her feet looked like," she said.

"Why did you hate my mother so much?" I asked, shaking my head. "All she wanted were good things for you."

"Don't believe it. She was jealous of every moment Jimmy spent on me," she spat back.

"That's not true. It's a horrible thing to think and say."

"It was true," she insisted. "When it comes to another woman's jealousy, honey, I'm an expert."

She lifted her feet out of the water and set them on the edge of the tub.

"Go to my overnight bag and get my nail polish. I want you to do my toes," she ordered.

I stared down at her defiantly. Right now she looked like a blob of selfishness and cruelty, a heartless creature who lived only for one thing-her own pleasure. I didn't think I was capable of as much hate and anger as I felt at this moment. She must have seen it in my eyes, for her look of self evaporated quickly and her eyes became two luminous hot coals of fury.

"Don't you look down at me like that, Christie Longchamp. You may think you're better than me, but deep inside you're cut from the same cloth. You couldn't wait to call my brother and run off to this out-of-the-way hideout so you could give in to your s.e.xual fantasies. You even were low enough to drag your little brother along," she charged.

"That's not true; that's not why I ran away," I cried, the tears burning behind my eyelids.

"You ran away because you're a spoiled brat who got everything her way, who was the center of attention and who's now just another child in the house. Aunt Bet didn't cater to you like your mother did so . . ."

"Uncle Philip raped me!" I blurted.

For a moment the silence was so heavy, I could hear the pounding of my heart and imagined she could too. She sat up slowly in the tub, never taking her eyes of me. I couldn't stop sobbing.

"Raped you? You mean . . ."

"He came into my room naked," I bawled, "and crawled into my bed."

"No fooling," she said with a sick smile on her face. She wasn't outraged and sympathetic; she was t.i.tillated and amused. "Tell me about it," she demanded.

"There's nothing to tell. He came in and forced himself on me. It was horrible."