Punctual Carl and Aiming Low

"I'll have something, that's for sure..."

Being on the cusp of adulthood was an experience fraught with trivial decisions. Carl knew this. Carl wasn't afraid of it or anything. He was afraid of one day being afraid, was what. Of the per-chance that the trivial unmasked its sly little self to reveal an unaccounted ramification, in a day he no longer had in his ward the same ideals that drove him to such doe-faced decisions in the first place.

He wanted, he guessed, to want in peace. When he was told of a certain ritual to satisfy such qualms from an old acquaintance (and self-declared veteran in the dark arts), he jumped on the opportunity. Not because he believed in the mumbo-jumbo. No, he'd persuade you, no, certainly not. It was not that he believed; it was that he wanted to believe. Want to believe, the boy pathetically, in his shameless puberty fueled fervor, did.

Maybe, that's all it took.

Below the rock sat, quietly, resting and unassuming at the base of his linted pocket. His mom's Maxima clunkered the whole ride back home.

ding-dong

What a generic doorbell jingle. A random thought. Not like it wasn't the same, standard stock doorbell that had been integrated in their walls for the past near-decade now. But Carl couldn't help himself.

Via a bush-oscillating swish, the door opened and out of its way he was met with neither biological mother nor blonde twenty-year-old broad of which no fantasies were intimately had, in the privacy of one teen's lonesome room under the soft cotton of his bedsheets, ever.

"Hi Carl!" Robinson junior nearly jumped and dropped an orange peeking around the corner of his stack of bags. With the kind of welcoming timbre you'd be quick to suspect even a scrap of authenticity to, a suspicion to which Carl and everyone else who's been within its inexorable radius for a few minutes will hardily object was definitely, mightily not the case, the older, buxom forty-year-old visitor's rosy voice grabbed Carl's ears by the drum. "Looks like you've got the goods, haven't you?"

A younger Carl would have missed the clearly obvious, how-can-you-shrug-that! punchline. But experience beget wisdom. With a chuckle, Carl bantered, "Yeah, I--"

"Beatrice," the woman shouted, head already swiveled sideways, "your boy's brought the goods!"

"Aunt Ida..!" Carl spluttered.

A voice emerged from inside. "Great! Tell him to put them down here in the kitchen."

"In the kitchen honey," Aunt Ida gestured, causing her red blouse, a flattering top that dipped low and wide enough to show plenty of chest without actually exposing all that much cleavage, to quickly graze against Carl's person, ushering the boy in by shoulder as he stumbled to get his shoes off.

"Th-thanks..."

Ah, Aunt Ida. The short, busty, habitually playful redheaded mother of two was as lively as ever. Even when he thought he'd be able to match her head on in his manhood, she still found ways to make him revert to his awkward barely pubescent days in painfully opportune fervor. Fact was, she was not really his aunt; most of his mother's relatives were cross country. Could have fooled him and everyone else at this point. Sometimes even he would forget. He and his mom had been friends with the Callisades for years. Twenty-something-something, who knew, he wasn't keeping count. But they shared a home once. She reportedly even breastfed him. Really. When Beatrice had been out on a family emergency, or so it goes. As always, he took her stories with a grain of salt. Pepper when it was especially tangy.

And Carl didn't even like pepper...

"Hey Carl," rhapsodized another voice as he was righting a tipped bag on the counter. Looking past them, he tipped his chin at the Hispanic lady situated on the corner stool against the opposite wall, the strikingly faced woman fitted slimly and curvily into yoga pants and a casual vest and long-sleeved shirt as she smiled at him.

"Afternoon Mrs. Gomez."

"A little past it now, mijo."

"Evening," Carl corrected wryly.

With a gamely twinkle, Nicole Gomez set her elbow on the countertop, cheek against knuckle, just as the backdoor of the kitchen clicked open, and the host herself breezed in.

Coming up to the counter, she couldn't even be bothered to look up from the phone she had in her hand as she spoke. "Did you get the Bleach?"

"Your little man's grown, 'ey, Bea?" teased Mrs. Gomez. "I see a little stubble on that squeaky face of his."

At said squeakster's quick feel of his chin, the Latina woman laughed, which was a little unfortunate. So she was just messing around. Dang. Carl always wanted a bit more follicle action in the facial department, frankly.

After some sifting, Carl took a bottle out of the bag on the far right. "Here."

"Thank you," his mom accepted the bottle, checking the labels. Carl looked around, then back.

"Where's Hailey?"

A distracted Mrs. Robinson rose her brows. "Hm?"

"Hailey?" repeated the teen.

"She's helping Ida with the refreshments in the garage."

Carl nodded, fingers tapping against the counter. They did have a small studio in there. "So when are the rest coming?"

His mother dallied over to the kitchen sink, chlorine in hand. "Should be in about an hour and a half." She glanced up. "Ida and Nicole are just here to lend a hand with preparations."

"Ayeaye," Mrs. Gomez drew up a finger, then promptly dropped it, "I'm here because I ended up at Ida's place after an afternoon jog and just got dragged along."

"Should I inform the police of a case of ****?" Beatrice posited.

"Oh--please."

The two ladies laughed buoyantly. Carl shook his head. As he did, he noticed the way Mrs. Gomez's right leg was crossed over the other. Her position on the stool was leaned slightly to the side, causing her sturdy legs to strain against the tight fabric of her yoga pants. And the same effect was applied, as you might have guessed, to that lovingly round bottom upon which she sat so obliviously, gabbing away.

How round. How painstakingly alluring.

Which is why, in his silence, the young man mentally iced himself.

Stay!

Jeez, was his head treading dangerous boundaries today. He was lucky, whatever you wanted to call it, to have been caught by such an 'accommodating' -- for lack of a better, not as offensive word -- woman at the store, earlier, for the same infraction. But that kind of encounter happened, like, once in a LIFETIME. Let alone a year. Let alone a day. Let alone here, amongst people with which he was long acquainted and knew unequivocally!

And never in a million years was he about to just let himself casually walk into the same clear cut, dastardly trap!

"Carl?" Suddenly breaking his thoughts, Carl looked up in mortifyingly accurate time to see Mrs. Gomez addressing him with a funny expression on her face, and, him realizing he'd been staring at her arse the whole time (Minute? Hour? Century?) his stomach promptly sank like the Titanic, in a very small tub, in the city of Atlantis. He desperately tried to recollect himself. The words came to him in a delayed haze. Which, essentially, is the same thing as saying they never made it out.

"Hm," his ever pretty mother pushed herself off of the wall, and he felt everything clench, everywhere. She locked gazes with Mrs. Gomez. Now both of them were equipped with funny expressions. It was odd that they weren't saying something. Anything. Maybe that was disgust etched on their experience-addled faces? Could Carl's perving have left them that openly speechless?

"Carl," Mrs. Gomez repeated. The boy suddenly realized both of their eyes were on him now. Haplessly ashamed, Carl braced himself for whatever scolding were prudently, dreadfully bound to follow.

3...

2...

...1..!

"...did you want a closer look at my butt cheek?"

"I think he did, Nicole. Would it be too much to ask for you to give him a better view?"

"Oh, of course not, Bea. Your son is free to stare at my butt any time he wants."

And, to Carl's amazement, Mrs. Gomez leaned further to her side, ass now nearly directly facing the young, flabbergasted man, as she gripped the top of her trousers and tugged them over her right, glorious, protruding globe of ass. The shine streaked across it by virtue of the ceiling light, and it so wonderfully gleamed across its smooth, bare curvature.

Oh, my god!

Carl dropped all pretense alongside his suddenly heavy jaw. His legs twitched and squeezed together as he burrowed his wrists against his unfurling groin like an airbus on autopilot. He leaned over the the counter, wide-eyed and tight-pants'ed to get, as proposed, a 'closer look.'

The steamy Mrs. Gomez, Nicole effing Gomez, yes, her, from down the block and 'round the corner, was, at this moment, without smoke and mirrors of any reality-affirming, relief wave commencing sort, showing off her blissfully naked ass to... to...

Me!?

In front of Mom?

As a guest in someone else's home?!

He felt faint. This had to be a dream. It had to.