Boundaries Ch. 01

I blinked at Kaylee a few times, only approaching half-awake. My darling daughter slunk into my bedroom on her quiet feet to ask me to make her favorite breakfast. She seemed to appear out of nowhere a lot. Weren’t teenagers supposed to be clumsy, ignorant of their surrounds from all that pure self-absorption, or something? I laughed inwardly to myself. It was all that ballet she took that made her light on her feet.

I inelegantly covered a yawn with the back of my hand, “What will it be this morning, hun?”

And then, out of the sleep-haze, I remembered I promised to make her something specific, but my brain hadn’t woken up enough to recall.

“Mom! You promised blintzes,” she rolled her eyes. “You don’t remember?”

“Of course,” I chuckled. Blintzes, obviously. It was her favorite.

I glanced sidelong at my bedside clock. A little after seven. How did I end up with a teenager who felt it oh-so-necessary to not sleep in today? Yeah, blintzes, that’s right.

“Oh, and guess what I heard about Christy and her boyfriend,” she grinned cheerily, knowing that I would like the gossip.

I wasn’t one of those people that lived for it, but it was entertaining. And it allowed me to keep up on what the kids did these days.

I listened to her any ways, even though it was too early for gossip, sitting up and still under my covers, as she told me the story. I sat there for a while hoping that she would finish quickly and then I could get dressed and feed her. But, Kaylee continued talking and moving onto other subjects and asking me questions and obligating me to give her some sort of answer, despite my sleepy state.

“Aren’t you going to change, mom?,” she finally said after she noticed I wasn’t moving and attentively waited for her.

“Well, the sooner you finish up your story and let me do that the sooner you can have your beloved-beyond-all-that-is-holy blintzes,” I poked.

Her face playfully took on a look of shock as I plucked up an elastic hair tie from my nightstand and knotted my dirty blonde hair.

“You can change, it’s fine,” she said.

I was struck by the novelty of her suggestion to change in front of her. I couldn’t remember a time when I undressed in front of my daughter. I lifted my nightie over my head, nervously, but tried to act as nonchalantly as possible. I looked at her, studying her face but I couldn’t tell much from her expression. I felt the air tickle my nipples and bare pussy and it felt wonderful. I continued nodding as she went on talking and her eyes casually drifted over my body.

“You look pretty good, mom,” she surprised me in a good way. “Those work outs are paying off.”

“Really trying to suck up until you get your blintzes, I see,” I smirked, teasing her.

“Just saying the effort is noticeable,” she dismissed, sounding a little defensive, taken aback by my inability to take the compliment.

“Well, you’ve inspired me a little with your dedication to dancing, I suppose,” I offered, which was true, accepting her compliment and letting her know it was appreciated.

“Now you’re the one who’s sucking up, mom,” she smirked. She got me.

“Well, your Highness, toss me some underwear,” I mocked.

Years of watching my mom and grandma truck around the house all weekend in pajamas and housecoats permanently turned me off to them. I got dressed when I got up and it was the closest thing to a ritual I had. It wasn’t a ritual with too many strictures. Sweats counted.

Kaylee slid off the bed and went to the dresser, tugging open my underwear drawer, and rummaged. She rooted right past the comfy cotton things and dug down to the slinkier undies. I nearly threw up my hands at her choice.

I did my best to not control my chagrin when she tossed me a matching set of satin bra and panty. They were downright skimpy. Who cooked breakfast in a get-up like this?

“C’mon, it picks up your highlights,” she said, as I obviously didn’t cover my annoyance very well.

“Will it pick up my highlights through the sweats?”

“When you look mahvelous, you feel mahvelous,” she countered.

I cursed my decision to turn Kaylee onto Saturday Night Live re-runs. I’d have to let her know that Billy Crystal was doing comedy, not doling out life advice.

I pulled it on from the front as I’d done for years. I’d always been limber enough to fasten it in the back but, ironically, the kickboxing classes that were making me fit also made me stiff this morning. After twenty years of a routine, it was hard to adjust my front-first habit.

I smiled,”Mind helping me on with my bra?”

I spun my back to Kaylee and offered her both sides of the open bra strap.

She was behind me in an instant. I felt Kaylee’s approach as a telltale rush of air, quick and soundless in her dancer’s way. Her hands startled me as they came around my front. Her fingers traced under chest and along my bra, brushing against the side of my breasts, tugging it expertly into place. She hooked it a notch tighter than I usually nilüfer escort did and I could feel my breasts bulging out of the cups a bit.

“Wait, your strap’s funny,” she untwisted the shoulder strap as I waited. “It’s fine now. You look really… nice, mom.”

That was a funny pause. Either way, her warm and pleasant breath felt good against my back. It was nice in an unexpected but unsettling way.

“Y-yeah,” I caught myself.

I felt crowded, needed more space. She was too close.

“Hey be a dear and get some things ready in the kitchen for me? I’ll be there in a moment.”

Her arms came around me again and she hugged me from behind, cross-wise, with one arm under mine and the other over my shoulder. She pulled me tightly, her smaller body pressing into me and I felt her breasts in my back. She rested one chin on my shoulder.

“Thanks, for the blintzes,” she smiled.

I rubbed her bare forearms and she squeezed me tighter still. She gave me one last little squeeze and her lips brushed the back of my neck under my ponytail for a quick peck.

“I’ll try making some coffee,” she chirped, finally letting me go and heading for the door.

I turned and watched her pad down the hall and into the kitchen.

She’d never made coffee before. Never even offered.

My Kaylee was growing up, maybe a little quicker than I expected.

****

Kaylee wasn’t always like this. I’m an observant mom. I noticed her teen diffidence being replaced with more honesty, more openness. She was more thoughtful, asking me what I was up to and how I was doing. She touched me more, too.

By the time Kaylee turned eighteen, a lot of things changed. In the past, my advice went in one ear and out the other. Like most teens, she paid little attention to her mom’s opinions. But then, she’d always made her own decisions. I doubt too many mothers will ever hear their fourteen-year-old daughters say, “Okay, Mom. I’ll take what you’re saying under advisement” like I was tasking her with curing cancer.

Under advisement?! I’d told me sister about that and we had a good chuckle.

I actually found Kaylee’s independence reassuring. Knowing she thought for herself made me worry a lot less about the usual perils of raising a teenage daughter. I felt secure knowing my kid was never going to get talked into something she didn’t want to do.

We actually talked about things now, instead of her blatantly ignoring what I said and doing what she wanted any ways. Last month was a perfect example of the ever-evolving Kaylee. After I told her that her aunt needed her to work at the office (where Kaylee also worked part time), she pouted a little, saying she already made plans with friends for the day. She relented though, and more easily than I expected. After thinking about it, she agreed, saying she could use the extra money for college and that she even looked forward to spending time with her aunt. She was so mature about the whole thing.

She forgave the intrusion on her social life quickly because only a couple of nights later she joined me on the couch on a Friday night to watch an old black-and-white movie. I didn’t even have to ask. Not that long ago, she would have spent the night out with friends or holed up in her room, on the internet, writing, talking with friends, or whatever instead of watching a movie with me.

That night, she materialized next to the couch in her silent way. “Mind if I watch with you, mom?”

“Never.” I waved her onto the couch with me, my eyes still glued to the screen.

She folded herself up carefully next to me, poised as always. She snuggled into me, nudged my arm up and then around her. I couldn’t remember the last time she pressed her smaller, more delicate body into mine like that.

When the movie ended, she stirred, yawned, saying,”That wasn’t so bad… for an old movie”

She stretched, kissed me on the forehead, and was off to bed. I was amazed. The fact that she actually acknowledged it spoke volumes. In the past, she would have disliked it just to be contrary.

Our movie tastes mixed like oil and water. She liked artsy movies and adaptions of classic novels and I liked romances, some older black and whites, and things a bit more mainstream. I didn’t know what changed, other than a general sense of opening up, but it felt wonderful.

I tried to remember the last time we cuddled like that for the past two hours. I felt my heart swell and I realized that, without knowing it, some part of me had craved my daughter’s attention. There was a time when I was her entire world, when she’d been mine. Maybe Kaylee was coming back to me.

It was a late night a week later and I was drunk on Golden Era romance. Kaylee’s closeness and the feelings she stirred up brought older memories to the surface, ones I’d shuttered away.

My sister and I were close in our late teens, insanely close, more than most. It got to the point where it was physical. Very physical.

It was görükle escort tender and nervous, kind and eager, and completely experimental. We weren’t much older than Kaylee, living in a small town where we hadn’t dated much at eighteen and nineteen years old.

We were horny, naive, and curious. She was my first girl and I was her’s. Eventually, we moved on, having “grown out of it” after things naturally ran their course. My sister never developed a sustained desire for girls but that time with her flipped some kind of switch in me I never realized existed. From then on, I dated both guys and girls.

All these years later, I still thought about those times with fondness and a deep sense of arousal. Sometimes, I came, shuddering, guilty, late at night, biting back my sister’s name.

My sister and I never talked of those times. By some unspoken, mutual agreement, we left those memories to their respective moments in time. We kept living. She married and was happy raising two beautiful kids.

I was never as close to a woman as I was with my sister. Although, we never talked about those memories, I knew there was no oddness about those memories for her. That was genuine trust and love. I felt that I was beginning to develop a meaningful connection with my daughter. Did some of the longer looks from Kaylee remind me of those days?

I never told Kaylee about those nights with her aunt, but at least I was honest with her from the start. I told her about my bisexuality as well as I could explain it to her at a young age. And after her dad and I broke up, I dated mostly guys, but also some women. She accepted my choices with the kind of ease people do when they are exposed to something early.

That night after the movie, I did something shameful. After sharing a long snuggle with my daughter on the couch, watching Rita Hayworth slink around in filmy dresses, I stretched out on the couch. I reached into my sweatpants and I masturbated. There, in the living room. Lit by the muted TV.

Memories of my sister when we were both young and eager and curious, filled my head. As always, the memories quickened things. When the sharp-edged crest of my furtive climax snapped white behind my closed eyelids, it wasn’t my sister’s face I saw. It was Kaylee’s. My daughter was looking at me, laying next to me, stroking my hair, telling me I was beautiful.

I shook my head, banishing the thoughts, and rode out the adamant climax, hunching into my own palm, grinding against my clit, trying to make the blistering orgasm and its insane thoughts end. It refused, stretched out, bloomed, expanded, doubled. I heaved under its ridiculous weight, barely able to breathe, until the hot joy it heaped on me was over. I was left weak and limp on the couch, unable to move.

****

As a show of respect for her adulthood, we took turns picking films. It was only a month later when she surprised me with her pick.

“What’s it called?” I asked.

She clicked the mouse a few times and re-read the title,”Clara’s Summer.”

“Haven’t heard of it. It’s not one of those direct-to-video things is it? Those things are awful.”

“It’s French, Mom,” she explained. Her voice had the strained patience of someone talking to the very slow-witted.

“Oh,” I muttered as I walked around behind her to see the computer screen and her Netflix account.

I was surprised by her choice. It was the first sign that she was interested in this type of thing. The thumbnail cover on the computer screen showed two girls kissing, girls about her age, eighteen or nineteen.

“It was actually a made-for-TV movie in France,” she continued.

“Well, I’d like to see more of their made-for-TV movies, then!” I joked as I read the description.

The film was about two girls who become infatuated with one another. Their relationship breaks up and one of them moves on after their tryst. A beautiful bisexual girl comes to continue one of the girl’s experimentation and self-discovery and relieve her anguish. Laden with a faux-angst but artsy description, it was no wonder Kaylee wanted to see the movie.

“I guess I thought you might like it too, Mom. You know, since you play for both teams and all.”

“Sure, why not? I’m in. It’ll be fun to watch you squirm at the girlie love parts,” I quipped.

Kaylee started the movie on the TV and took up her now-favorite position, stretched out on her side with her head resting on my leg.

The movie was true to its description and seeing pretty young girls was a surprising treat. The few sex scenes in the movie were more graphic than I expected, but definitely not porn. Although a little too artistic for me, it was certainly erotic. I never really sought out lesbian or porn films. I had plenty of erotic material in my own head.

As we watched the movie, thoughts of my sister returned and simmered in my head. A distinct warmth unfurled in my belly as the movie’s romance unfolded.

My experiences weren’t as heady and bursa escort dramatic as the movie, but there were certainly some similar themes. The film had homed in on one exciting aspect — the inability to know what exactly the other girl was thinking. What motivated her? Sex drive? Affection? Curiosity? It was a combination of all those things for my sister and me.

Kaylee was stretched out across the couch but, at some point, she curled up, knees against her chest.

My eyes traced along her sleek legs, entranced. Long, lean, and smooth, sculpted by long hours of ballet. Sinewy. Graceful.

She wore a ballerina-inspired skirt, a layered elegant thing, that accidentally rode up to just above the shelf of her butt cheeks and I could see her panties through her sheer tights. Light blue satin. Not for the first time, I wondered how many had my daughter been naked with.

I imagined Kaylee undressing for a young lover, baring her perfect glowing skin. Someone touching her. Her responding with a moan. Jesus, what the hell was the matter with me lately?

I was still in a daze when Kaylee tottled off to bed.

****

I should have guessed the movie would inspire some pointed questions from my curious daughter. She didn’t come to me immediately, obviously needing some time for those questions to percolate.

“Mom? What were your experiences like?” Kaylee asked me a couple days later. “Were they like in the movie?”

The question caught me off guard since I truly didn’t think she was interested in particulars, having mentioned she was tired and was off to bed rather quickly after the movie ended.

“Well,” I said, not knowing how to approach the subject. “There was a lot of experimentation. That’s for sure.”

She nodded, taking it in. “Did you like her, like a guy?”

“I suppose,” I said, trying to remember back to my first experiences with my sister. “But I think, for me, I guess I didn’t know what to think. I had to figure that out.”

“Not to sound silly, but, umm, how exactly do girls ‘experiment’ anyway?” she wondered.

I felt the blood rush to my cheeks, blushing, as I realized that this conversation could quickly become X-rated. I tried to think of ways to describe my experiences in terms that wouldn’t get explicit.

“Kissing. Rubbing… that kind of thing,” I answered vaguely.

“Oh.” She nodded again, and chewed on her lip. She looked off into the distance for a minute.

“Honey, if you’re interested in girls, there’s nothing wrong with that, you know that right?” I reassured her. “I don’t care who you date.”

She chewed her lip a bit more quickly. “Okay, so can I tell you something? Something private?”

I nodded quickly.

“Okay, so I know these girls. And I went over to their house one time. They started kissing and they wanted me to kiss them too,” she ventured, fidgeting.

My little dancer never fidgeted.

I chuckled, “It’s alright to kiss with other girls.”

“But I didn’t though,” she replied uncomfortably.

“Really?”

“No, but I just watched them” she confessed. “And I guess I’ve thought about it a lot since then.”

“That’s normal too. The thinking part,” I chuckled and nudged my shoulder into hers, trying to make light of the event and ease her feelings. “Not so much the watching part. You trying to tell me I raised a pervert?”

She laughed, a nervous bright laugh. My kid’s laugh.

“Nooo,” she stretched it out for effect then sighed. “Look Mom, here’s the thing. I guess I kinda wanted to do what they were doing, you know, the kissing and stuff.”

“So why didn’t you, hun?” I laughed. “I’d much rather have you experiment with girls than boys, any day.”

She looked up at me, eyes searching my face. “I don’t know, I guess I was scared or something.”

“That’s okay. It’s natural to feel scared, especially when you’re trying something new. I was terrified.”

“That’s kind of what I’m wondering about. Mom, how did you know it felt right to kiss another girl?”

“You’re thinking about this a lot more than I did, honey. For me, it just sort of happened. The first girl I kissed, I always kinda liked her. We’d known each other for a very long time.”

“Liked her,” she echoed. “I guess I liked one of the girls that night. She’s the one I wanted to kiss.” Her head drooped low and she rubbed her forehead.

“You’re really stressing over this aren’t you, honey?”

“Yeah. I guess I am.”

I looked at my little girl as she wrestled with a big decision and my heart went out to her. What was I supposed to say? I never would have dreamed of having this conversation with my mother. She’d have had a stroke.

My daughter was braver than me, more thoughtful, more honest with herself and with me. I smiled.

“So, how did you like her… the girl you kissed? I mean… that’s kind of a weird way to put it, I guess.”

“It just kinda happened. We had a lot in common and at some point, our feelings just took over. I guess I just followed my heart. Make sense?”

Kaylee nodded slowly, and one corner of her mouth hitched up. “Wow, you know what? It kinda does.”

“Good. I’m glad we got that settled. Because I was about ready to dish up dinner before you said you wanted to talk. Are you ready for dinner? I’m hungry.”