Jon Reskind
Little eddie_s mother

CHAPTER ONE

Eddie Granger stood on the muddy shoulder of the highway, a miserable expression on his face as the rain fell steadily, pounding the fields and open country on both sides of the road. He was soaked through and through, yet he wore a curiously pleased expression on his face despite the rain and the bone-chilling wind. His wide, expressive dark eyes flashed with his excitement, and his smooth adolescent cheeks were tinted with color from the wind as well as from eagerness.

Just a few hundred miles more to San Francisco, he thought. Just a little while longer and I'll be with my mother, where I belong.

Then suddenly a horrible feeling of frustration came over him, because he realized it had been a long time since a car had passed, and he had been certain that he would easily have found a ride at least into Reno and maybe further if only some cars would come along. There had been only a huge oil truck and a little old lady in a 1947 Ford, who gave Eddie a disapproving look as she whizzed by, during the entire time the boy had been standing there.

Eddie Granger was a clean-cut youth with dark hair that fell lankly over his forehead, but in blue jeans and with a knapsack on his back, he knew a lot of drivers would take him for a hippy and be reluctant to offer a ride. He also hoped that none of the people who offered him a ride would guess his age, which was fourteen, and call the authorities because he was a runaway. So far he'd been lucky. He was tall for his age and well built, but he had just recently begun shaving and only needed to do it twice, a week or so.

Standing there in his rain-soaked clothes on the deserted highway, a feeling of defeat suddenly came over him causing tears to well up in his eyes along with a bleak feeling of fear in his heart… What if his mother didn't really want him… What if she sent him back home to his dad? He pushed the thoughts from his mind and sat down on his back pack, elbows on knees and face in hands.

It was growing late now, almost two o'clock, and he feared that he might still be stranded on this desolate stretch of highway when darkness fell. Then, just as he was about to give up, he heard the unmistakeable hum of an engine in the distance.

Finally the car appeared on the horizon. It was a sleek, silver-grey Mercedes travelling at a terrific rate of speed. Eddie's hopes rose when he saw it had California license plates, but then his heart sank, for it was not slowing down at all. It was occupied by two people, an extremely handsome middle-aged man and an attractive blonde sitting close by his side. At first it seemed they would race on by without even giving him a glance, but at the last moment the car's blonde female passenger caught sight of Eddie and smiled at him, nudging against her male companion's shoulder to draw his attention to the stranded teenage boy.

Eddie saw the twin brake-lights flash red as the powerful automobile slowed to a halt several hundred yards down the highway. Heaving a long sigh of relief, he watched the Mercedes begin to back slowly towards him. After gathering up his backpack and tightly rolled sleeping bag, the bedraggled youngster ran smiling towards the car, thankful and happy but not altogether convinced that the couple would not change their minds and tear off without him.

At last the distinguished-looking car drew abreast of him and the door flew open.

"Hey, you poor kid, you're dripping wet from head to foot," the blonde said warmly. "Come on, just squeeze in beside me."

"And you can throw your gear in the back seat," the man told him. "Welcome aboard!"

"Wow, thanks. Thanks a whole lot," Eddie told them, sliding in beside the woman. And suddenly he was very aware of the heat of her body beside him. He looked over at the woman and thought, she's really pretty.

She was about his mother's age, Eddie figured, but there was something more worldly about her. And what a body! Holy Shit! It was all Eddie could do to keep his eyes from her large firm breasts which strained nakedly against the thin material of her tight blouse.

"Where are you heading," the man asked.

"San Francisco," Eddie answered, feeling guilty for admiring his wife.

"Well, so are we," the blonde smiled warmly.

"Do you know anyone there?" the man asked, looking at Eddie as if he suspected something was wrong.

"Uh-huh… I'm going to see my mother actually."

"Oh, does she live in San Francisco?"

"She lives out side the city in Mill Valley," he answered.

"Well, that's interesting. So do we," the man told him. "Let me introduce myself. I'm Carl Bradley and this is my wife, Cindy."

"I'm Eddie Granger. My mom's name is Lily… uh, Lily Granger. She makes jewelry or something like that."

"How long are you going to be staying with her, Eddie?"

"I… I'm not sure," the boy answered hesitantly. His delight at finding a ride all the way to his final destination was changing to concern as the truth of his situation came home to him.

"Oh?" said Carl, lifting an eyebrow.

"Well, you see… I mean, well… my mother doesn't exactly know I'm coming and I'm going to sort of surprise her."

"And it depends on which direction her surprise takes, the length of time you'll be staying," Carl said. "Is that right?"

"Well, sort of," he answered hesitantly.

The woman laughed softly, but in a conspiratorial kind of way and her eyes met Eddie's for just a brief moment, then flickered away. "Running away, huh?"

Eddie studied the voluptuous woman and the man for a long moment, trying to decide whether or not to confide in them. Then he decided he needed a couple of friends, someone he could maybe crash with if things didn't work out with his mother. After all, he hadn't seen her in almost two years now, since she had visited New York. And they had had dinner and a wonderful time walking and talking, until his father refused to let her see him any longer and she had gone back to California. His father…

Eddie's mouth twisted bitterly and he looked squarely into Carl's sympathetic face. "It's my father I'm running away from," he said. "That… that son of a bitch!"

"That's pretty strong language, Eddie."

"Not in this case, it isn't," the handsome teenager flared. "That's exactly what he is – a son of a bitch! He treated me like dirt, not like a son. I had to be his Goddamn slave, practically, and live by all these prison rules like being home at eight o'clock every night, even on the weekends, and not having dates with girls because he said I'm too young and not being allowed to hang out with my friends because he didn't like them… Boy, he was just ridiculous. He was always saying it wasn't right to touch a girl until you were married and stupid stuff like that."

Carl and Cindy looked at each other with just the slightest suggestion of a smirk on their lips.

"Well, he sounds pretty uptight," Cindy said.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. But what else could I do. He had custody of me even though I always liked my Mom better. She and I have been writing to each other every week, you know, and my dad never knew about that or he would have tried to stop it; she was sending out her letters to a friend's house so my father wouldn't find out. Anyway, she said I should stay with him until I was eighteen and of a legal age to go out on my own; that it was no use in asking for trouble by running away or anything like that."

"From what you say," Carl observed, "your father appears to hate your mother. Why is that?"

"Well, Mom's always been a kind of free spirit and Dad said she was unstable and… and," he looked down at his feet and blushed slightly, but was determined to continue, "they had a problem with sex, too."

"Sex?" echoed Cindy with great interest.

"Well, you see, my dad would never make love to her…" Eddie blushed with the boldness of his words and lowered his eyes. "You know what I mean, don't you."

Oh, yes, Eddie, yes, Cindy thought. Every time I look at you, my pussy begins to tingle like crazy and I can picture what a beautiful sweet cock you must have and how much hot white delicious cum you must have saved up, never even being allowed to date girls. But she did not want to frighten the innocent young boy so she said gravely: "Yes, Eddie, I think I know what you mean. And I bet your mother is a really beautiful woman."

"Oh yes, she is," Eddie agreed eagerly, his eyes shining. Then his expression sobered. "That's the reason they were finally divorced, three years ago. I mean, she's not a bad woman or even wild, but my father just wasn't interested in sex – or so he said."

"I think I understand," Carl said sympathetically. "Your mother has normal sex drives, requiring normal fulfillment, but your father considered her to be – how shall I say it? – a wicked woman. Is that right, Eddie?"

Eddie nodded emphatically. "Uh-huh," he said. "He told her she was perverted and a whore and a lot of other terrible things, and he wouldn't sleep in the bedroom with her for months and months. Finally, Mom couldn't take any more of it and she went out and… and…" Again, the handsome teenager blushed and turned his face away.

Even though Carl's smile was gentle and soothing on the outside, his thoughts were lewd and naked with mounting excitement internally, and he became more and more intrigued by Eddie's description of his mother. "She went out and found herself another man?" he asked softly.

"Y-yes," Eddie said.

"Perfectly natural," Cindy commented. "No man or woman can be constantly refused sexually and be expected to just passively allow hunger and frustration to eat away at them."

Eddie bobbed his head. "I understand that, and you two do, but do you think my father did? Oh no, not him! He found out Mom was with this other guy, I don't know how but he did; and right away he filed for a divorce on the grounds of adultery. He could prove it, too, and so the judge gave him custody of me and Mom didn't get any alimony or anything… It was awful!"

Carl clucked his tongue compassionately. "Now I see why your mother moved to California – not only because it's cheaper there than in New York, but she was hurt and understandably bitter and wanted nothing more to do with the life style that had caused her troubles."

"I think so, too," Eddie agreed. "I can tell by her letters that she's still having kind of a hard time and that she's sort of lonely."

Carl cleared his throat to hide his increasing interest. "What prompted you to leave your father now, Eddie?" he asked. "Something must have or you wouldn't have hitchhiked all the way out here from New York unannounced. Do you want to tell me about it? It might help if you did."

"I… I don't really want to talk about it," Eddie replied, but he did. The entire episode was festering inside his impressionable young body like a cankerous sore, filling him with outrage and hurt and frustrated confusion, and he was near-bursting with the need to unburden himself. These two pleasant people, by their manner and understanding comments, had instilled in the teenage boy a sense of camaraderie and confidence; it would be easier to talk of what happened with them that it would be to talk about it to his mother. If he told his new friends first and got it all out in the open, the task of telling his mom would be that much simpler when the time came – as he knew that it would as soon as he saw her.

He said: "Well… it's not very… not very nice."

Carl smiled reassuringly and Cindy touched his arm with the tips of her fingers. "You'll feel better if you tell us," she said.

"I… I guess so," Eddie said. "All right then. I…" He stopped, and then continued in a rush of words, "I came home from school one afternoon last week with this sore throat, and I just walked into the house without making any noise and he was there, my father, on the couch in the living room, with this woman I'd never seen before. They were naked… and, well, they were doing it, right there on the couch with my father on top and this crazy look on his face… and the woman, her… her breasts were bouncing up and down as she… as she…" Eddie's face burned furiously and his voice trailed off; he shuddered with the very real shock of the memory of what he had witnessed, how he had stood frozen watching the lewd tableau with his father and the woman unaware of his presence, and then finally he had turned and fled from the house…

Cindy and Carl wanted to burst out laughing. So the old boy was a Goddamn hypocrite! Pretending to be so high and mighty holy while the whole time he was fucking around like Casanova – and not allowing his wife or son any expression of their sexuality. Crazy nut! But they kept their faces impassive, and Cindy managed to put a look of shocked hurt in her eyes. She patted the boy's arm again, this time letting her long fingers linger on the smooth skin of his neck. "It must have been terrible for you, Eddie," she intoned.

"It… it was," Eddie said. "Just awful! I ran out and they never knew I was there. I just walked around for a real long time, trying to think and I finally made up my mind to run away. I thought of going to Canada and even Mexico, but then I thought of my mother and how she maybe really needed me… I mean, we really love each other. So I decided to hitchhike out here and stay with her. I know my dad will probably guess that's where I am… but I just hope that Mom can think of something for us to do – some way to get me living with her instead of him, you know?"

Eddie paused to take a deep breath, then went on. "So I pretended like I hadn't seen anything, and my father was his usual self again when I came home, giving me orders and telling me about all the evil that was happening in the world. So I just waited for the right time – I had everything packed in my back pack – and the next day instead of going to school I took a bus through the tunnel to the highway in New Jersey and stuck out my thumb, and here I am."

Carl pretended to be deep in thought, frown lines wrinkling the bronze surface of his rugged forehead. "How do you think your mother will react to seeing you like this, and finding out what you've just told me?"

"I don't know, I just don't," Eddie answered. "She loves me, I know she does, but she's afraid my father will try and get some kind of revenge and make her life even more miserable than he has up to now. She might even send me back on account of that… Like sometimes he writes her these nasty letters, and still calls her a whore and a slut and stuff like that. And I know it makes her want to die when she gets something like that."

"Well," Cindy piped up, "She may understand why you've come to her and try to put up a fight for you – give your father a taste of his own medicine. Don't you think so Carl?"

"Well, I hope so for Eddie's sake."

"Wow! I sure hope so," Eddie breathed fervently. "I couldn't bare to go back to my father, not after what I saw, I just couldn't!"

"Don't worry now, honey, don't worry," Cindy soothed. "Everything will be all right."

"Do you really think so? Do you?"

"Sure," said Carl and smiled calmly to himself. Eddie's mother sounded like a ripe young fruit ready for fucking. "And we can drive you straight to her house."

The sun was rapidly sinking before them now as they cruised westward down the highway. Eddie's eyelids began to feel heavy with exhaustion and relief from having unburdened himself. It was the last lap of a long, arduous journey, and for the first time in a long time, his heart felt light and free. And so he slept soundly till morning while Cindy and Carl took turns driving. When Eddie opened his eyes again it was morning and the Mercedes was driving down Lombard Street in San Francisco heading for the Golden Gate Bridge. The bright signs of the motels and restaurants on the wide thoroughfare cheered Eddie and also made him aware of the hunger gnawing in his stomach. He couldn't remember the last square meal he'd eaten and was delighted when Carl pulled the sedan into the parking lot of a restaurant specializing in pancakes. The threesome ordered pancakes and eggs and sausages, drank coffee, and readied themselves for the last leg of the trip.

As they drove down onto the Golden Gate Bridge Eddie's breath caught in his throat as he was struck by the incredible beauty of San Francisco Bay in the early morning light. They drove over the bridge and through a tunnel painted like a rainbow, and Eddie felt like he was in the wonderland of Oz. California was the most beautiful place he'd ever seen.

Lily Granger lived in a small rustic cabin on a dirt road in the hills of Mill Valley. It was a simple three-room structure with a bathroom, built of redwood and situated in the middle of a grove of eucalyptus trees. The furniture was sparse. A rickety old oak table and chairs in the kitchen, with odds and ends of dishes and silverware picked up at garage sales, and in the living room was an old sofa covered with an Indian blanket to mask the tom upholstery. The rest of the living room furniture consisted of a number of pillows and cushions strewn about the hardwood floor. But the simple dwelling was filled with plants of all kinds, many of them suspended from the walls and ceilings by pretty macrame hangers that Lily herself had made. There were several paintings on the walls, none of them very good, but all of them done by friends. There was also a fireplace, but at the moment it was filled with old newspapers and cigarette butts.

Lily Granger was an exquisite woman of thirty four, with rich, seal-brown hair and skin tanned a full even bronze from the exposure to the warm rays of the California sun. She wore a white Mexican peasant blouse which revealed the sensual curves of her full, high breasts, and a pair of cut-off bluejeans shorts which accentuated the firm, lithe slenderness of her sun-browned legs.

When she had first left her husband, Albert, the sexually starved woman slept with many men in the free love culture of northern California… But she found the price of sexual freedom – the one night stands and emotional shallowness of the relationships – unbearably steep, and soon decided to abstain from sex completely. And although an acute dissatisfaction often gnawed at her, she relieved herself through masturbation and felt it was better than the remorse she had felt during her period of promiscuousness.

When the roar of a car engine approached along the dirt road leading to her cabin, Lily didn't hear it immediately. She was immersed in the delicate macrame choker she was working on and did not look up until the driver of the vehicle gunned the engine loudly and slowed to a stop parallel to the front porch. Then Lily looked up sharply, her fingers still at their work. Now who on earth is that? she thought irritably. The last thing I need now is visitors. Have to get rid of them, whoever it is, and the sooner the better. She was planning to sell her work at the Renaissance Fair, and she needed to work quickly because she could make enough money during the fair to last well into next spring.

Resolutely, Lily scraped back her chair and got to her feet. She strode to the door, swung it open, and started out. Then she froze, one foot out the door, and her eyes grew wide with disbelief.

It was Eddie, her son Eddie!

He stood there before her, looking imploringly into her eyes, holding his battered backpack in his right hand. It had been two years since she had seen him in the flesh, but he had sent her a picture of himself only a month before; Lily remembered at that time how she had marveled at how quickly he had grown into a handsome young man, how he had lost that little child look as his face took on a manly definition and his thin body filled out and became more muscular. But he was still Eddie, her little boy…

Mother and son hesitated a moment longer, then Lily took several steps toward Eddie, opening her arms. The boy rushed to his mother and hugged her tightly, feeling the soft, round warmth of her, knowing the scent of her hair and the wetness of her tears as she cried out her happiness at seeing him.

They held each other for a long moment, then she drew him back at arms length, her eyes searching his face. She still couldn't believe he was here, and her mind was full of questions about him now; the Renaissance Fair and her problems were completely forgotten. How had he gotten here? Why had he come? Where was his father?

"Honey," she managed to say, her throat thick with emotion. "Eddie, my little Eddie…"

"You're… you're glad to see me, Mom?" he whispered.

"Glad to see you! God, honey, you don't know how glad I really am! It's been two years now, two years…"

"I tried to get – him – to let me come visit you, or to let you come and see me in New York, but he wouldn't allow it; he said the courts didn't give you any… any visiting privileges and he was going to do just what they said… oh, Mommy, Mommy!" Eddie threw himself in his mother's arms again, pressing her softness tight against him, and Eddie could feel the firmness of her warm sensuous breasts against his chest. Lily blinked the tears from her eyes and then for the first time she was looking past her son, her eyes focusing on the car which had brought him and the two people standing beside it, patiently waiting and smiling. Lily didn't like the looks of them at all. They look like swingers, she thought disparagingly.

The mature blonde had struck a provocative pose by the luxury sedan, her eyes bright, her large full breasts thrust forward and her legs parted slightly. She was watching Eddie and his mother closely, it seemed to Lily, with that faintly predatory look often found in older wealthy women of a liberal bent. The blonde was certainly beautiful, Lily thought, sensual, but the type all too common out here who went to middle-class orgies in sumptuous homes with saunas and Japanese tubs. As for the man, well, he was handsome enough, but she wouldn't trust him alone with his own grandmother.

Lily turned her attention back to her young son, smiling gently, and stood him away again to look at him. "Honey," she said, "honey, what are you doing here? I thought… well, your father…"

"Oh, Mom, I couldn't stay with him another niinute, I just couldn't! I had to come to you!"

Lily looked past him again to Carl and Cindy. "Let's go inside and talk honey," she told her son.

But the couple were walking towards Lily now, Carl smiling disarmingly. Lily felt uncomfortable in his presence. Even though she didn't care for his type, she had to admit he was one hell of a hunk of man; and a night with her long lithe legs wrapped tightly around him would probably be one she wouldn't soon forget…

Carl said: "We picked up your son hitchhiking outside of Reno, Lily. We had a long talk, and he confided in us to a great extent. And we sort of feel obligated to see him through and lend him moral support."

Lily did not like the way he used her first name so familiarly. She said coolly: "Why should he need moral support?"

"Mom, I just had to tell someone, I just had to!" Eddie confessed. "Carl and Cindy have been so great, and it was so much easier for me to tell them first, before I told you, because they weren't involved in it and…"

"Calm down, honey, you're all excited."

"If you'd rather we left the two of you alone," Carl said, "I won't interfere. We just thought perhaps we could help in-some way."

"As a matter of fact," Lily told him, "I'd prefer to see my son alone."

"Mom! They're only…"

"It's all right, Eddie," the blonde woman smiled. "I don't think you'll be needing our support anyway. Your mother is on your side. I can tell that."

"Was there ever any doubt of that?" Lily asked her son.

"Oh no, Mom, I just thought… well, wait until I tell you what happened…"

"We'll be going now," Carl said softly, his dark eyes moving slowly over Lily's voluptuous form. "And if it's all right, I'd like to drop back to see Eddie, perhaps tomorrow. After all, he did confide in me and I consider him my friend now, and I'd like to know that everything's all right."

"Me too," said Cindy sweetly, her eyes also playing over the curvaceous field of Lily's body.

Before the young mother could protest, her handsome teenage son said: "Of course you can come back. Both of you. Please do."

"Good-bye, kiddo," the blonde breathed. "Chin up." Then she looked at Lily. "So long. I'll see you later too."

Carl gave Eddie a manly hug and winked his good-bye to the boy's mother, who grew irate once again at the sexual overtones of his familiarity and gave no reply. Then the couple walked back to their luxurious car. Carl climbed in behind the wheel and Cindy sat close to him on the front seat. He, started the engine and soon, they had disappeared around a curve in the dirt road with a roar of the engine and a cloud of dust.

Lily turned to her son, drew him tight against her body, and led him into the cabin.

"Now," she asked him as he made himself comfortable'on the old couch, "what is it you have to tell me? It must be important to upset you the way it obviously has."

"It is, Mommy. Oh it is!" Eddie cried. Then he took a deep breath and began to talk his heart out.