Each has had sex with one of the other's family

"My mom likes you," Naomi Bernice "Bernie" Bernstein told her boyfriend. They sat together at the back of the movie theater talking quietly as Gary's sister Lil sat at the front of the section, watching the movie.

"She told me that too," Gary said. "She thinks I'm good for you." He squeezed her hand on the arm of the theater seat.

Bernie laughed. "I hope she's right. She had completely zero sense about my girlfriends," she said. "Is that everyone you've had sex with since we've been together? Peter, Sonia Rubin, and Stuart? Um, and my mom?"

Gary laughed, then took a deep breath. "Well, one more thing," Gary said. "When I came into your back yard today, your mom was sunbathing. She had me rub lotion into her feet. And when I rubbed lotion between her toes, um..."

Bernie raised her eyebrows. "She had an orgasm?"

"Yeah," Gary said.

Bernie nodded. "Mom." She shook her head.

Gary said, "I kinda wasn't expecting that. She said she got carried away, that usually, um, that..."

"That I did it for her," Bernie said. "Well, yeah. Sometimes I do." She swallowed. "You know we masturbate together, at Pleasure Circles or just us. Well, sometimes Mom and I touch each other. Not just between the toes. Make each other come." She looked away from the movie screen and toward Gary.

"Wow," Gary said. "That must be really special." He imagined Joyce Bernstein's wise, skilled hands rubbing her daughter's swollen clitoris and Bernie getting her beautiful, glowing orgasm face at her mother's hands.

"Yeah," Bernie said.

"So should I try to keep away from your mom's feet?" Gary asked.

"I'd rather be there with you if there are gonna be orgasms," Bernie said. "You know."

"Yeah," Gary said. "Okay."

"But Mom is Mom. I mean, she can come from anything sometimes, so don't worry too much about it," Bernie said.

"All right," Gary said, reassured.

She leaned over and whispered in Gary's ear. "And there's one more thing. The salesgirl at the lingerie store was flirting like mad with me. And I went to this quiet bathroom at the back of a department store, you know, to take a jill pill?"

Gary nodded, holding back a laugh at her phrase. "Uh-huh," he said. Bernie had told him that like her mom, she often craved a 'jill pill' in the middle of a day. Heck, he joked with Peter Walker about getting 'jack attacks' during the day. A couple times they'd gotten together for quick stroke-offs on campus or in Peter's car.

"Lil came too," Bernie continued. "For the same reason. We heard each other masturbating, and she, and, and we listened to each other jill off."

"Wow," Gary whispered.

"Lil told me she wanted to do it again with me sometime," Bernie whispered.

"Do you want to?" Gary breathed.

"Maybe," Bernie said. "I don't want to make you feel weird or mess things up for your sister."

"I trust you to do right by her a bunch more than her last couple boyfriends," Gary whispered. He took a deep breath. "Do it if it feels right to you." An image of Bernie's curly head between Lil's spread legs flashed through his mind. "It's okay with me. Really."

"I'll let you know," Bernie said. "And I won't pretend to her I'm hiding it from you. No secrets?"

"No secrets," Gary echoed. "And you want to be there if I'm with someone and there are going to be orgasms."

"Yeah," Bernie said. She smiled. "Mom's gonna laugh out loud when the next time you call when we're jilling off, I actually tell you what we're doing."

Touching each other, Gary thought. Making each other come. "Uh-huh," Gary said.

At the front of the section, Lil got up and walked to the aisle. Bernie got up and followed her. Gary stayed seated, wondering if Bernie and Lil were going to have a talk right then.