The second event of the summer that had me really torn apart was the episode with the “spy-scope.” Bob kept insisting that something was going on between Kathy and Mary Clauson, the cute little blonde who double-dated with her and was her almost constant companion.
One evening when Mary was spending the night with Kathy, Bob signaled me to follow him up the stairs after they had gone up to Kathy's bedroom. He took me with him into the big storage closet in the hallway and turned on his flashlight.
“See the two little scopes there,” he whispered, indicating two objects that seemed imbedded into the back wall of the closet and looked like miniature telescopes or jeweler's devices for viewing gems.
“I installed them this afternoon when Kathy was at the movies. I use them in my work all the time. They consist of wide-angle photographic lenses with a viewer. The front lens is miniaturized. It sticks out in the bedroom like the head of a small pin, unnoticeable. Here… look through this one.”
As I put my eye up to the device nearest me, Bob peered through the other one. Almost the entire bedroom was completely visible to us. Kathy was taking off her bra, while Mary sat on the edge of the bed in her bra and panties.
“Bob… you must be mad!” I said almost aloud.
“Sh-sh!” he shushed me up, his strong hand squeezing my forearm until I thought it would break. “I didn't set this up for our amusement, you know. I'm seriously concerned about the abnormal sex habits of your daughter.”
I was terrified. I was terrified and uncomfortable. I felt like the vilest mother in the world as I realized Bob was watching my own daughter peel her panties down seductively as Mary said something to her that caused both girls to laugh. We could only catch a word every now and then. One thing I was sure that I heard was, “Bob flips… do this,” from Kathy.
She paraded all around the room stripped naked, projecting her growing breasts, wiggling her torso so that they bounced and quivered, so that her buttocks and thighs fairly danced with the obscene undulations of a strip artist or go-go girl.
“Bob… we can't do this,” I whispered to him.
“Sh-sh,” he responded again, this time slipping his arm around my waist and drawing me close to his side, “See what they're doing? I told you there was something to this.”
“Oh, Bob,” I objected, keeping my voice low, “they're just kidding around. I understand men do more than that in the shower room when they're joking or something.”
“You should know. Look.”
Mary stood up from her perch on the bed and removed her bra. Her breasts were smaller than Kathy's and the nipples quite large. I recall frowning at the unattractiveness in comparison.
The two girls stood together in front of the mirror, admiring themselves, then Kathy reached over and slipped a finger beneath the elastic waistband of Mary's pants.
“Oh… no,” I moaned under my breath, and I felt Bob's grip around my waist tighten.
They were both smiling at each other in the mirror, almost laughing. Kathy tugged downward at the pants until Mary's light blonde triangle was exposed. I caught my breath and I felt like I was going to faint dead away. My hand brushed past Bob's trousers.
“Bob… why…?”
“Sh-sh!”
He had exposed himself in the dark there and he was totally aroused. But I quickly looked back into the bedroom, torn between two terrible concerns. When I looked back through the scope, I felt like laughing out for sheer joy. What an evil person I was, we both were, for letting our minds imagine so much. Kathy and Mary did a quick dance in front of the mirror, laughing and giggling, then put on their baby-dolls and lay on the bed to read some pop music magazines.
“Why… why did you have it out like that?” I confronted Bob as soon as we got into our own bedroom a few minutes later, “You were about to… you were bursting with passion, Bob. I think…”
“Yes, I can imagine what your dirty little mind was thinking,” he popped back at me, pulling off his shirt and throwing it in a corner. “I can't understand how such an attractive woman as you, such an irresistibly erotic woman as you, can have so little self-confidence. You seem to be incapable of realizing your own attractiveness to the male.”
“Me?” I puzzled genuinely, taking off my blouse. “I'm talking about you getting so excited watching Kathy and Mary… your own private little peep-show to watch my daughter my dress…”
“Oh, good Lord!” Bob exploded. “Not that again. You have this morbid fixation, this ingrained idea that I am interested sexually in Kathy. You can't seem to realize, you refuse to realize that it is you who arouses me. You, Denise! I had my arm around your waist, correct?”
“Yes…”
You're wearing no girdle tonight, and no bra?”
“Yes.”
“Then don't you think that your presence was what excited me, Denise?” he asked, as if I were the densest person in the world. “You were so worried about things that were not even involved, I don't suppose you were conscious of the fact that my hands were caressing your buttocks, my fingers were feeling the yielding flesh of the underside of your breasts. Denise! You are a sexy woman, an erotic woman! When I am close to you, feeling your flesh like that teasing my hands beneath a minimum of clothing, I get passionate! Why do you keep torturing yourself and denying your sexuality? Why? Why? I want to make love to you, Denise. Yes! All week you have wanted to make love. Is it so strange, am I some kind of pervert because tonight, I want to make love to you?”
“No… no, darling… love me…”
And he did, more violently and satisfying than ever before.
The third incident of that summer was not so easy for me to put aside. I had rejected the others, relegating them at least to my subconscious where they boiled from within to tear me apart without my quite knowing or understanding what it was.
But this time it was different. We had been drinking quite heavily. Kathy had been staying out until all hours and acting very peculiar. She would often knock on our door after Bob and I had gone to bed, as if deliberately trying to keep us from making love.
And on that particular night when I had been drinking far too much, Kathy came in about one in the morning acting giddy and foolish. I knew she had been drinking too, but I was too ashamed of my own condition to mention it. We said a few words and then she went up to her bed.
Bob helped me upstairs, and I remember passing out almost as soon as I hit the bed. I woke up, still in a daze, about four o'clock. I needed to go to the bathroom. Bob was not there! I walked into the hall and saw his trousers and shirt across the railing at the top of the steps. I could hear voices somewhere and the sound of Kathy's radio.
I started toward her door, then I suddenly stopped in my tracks. I was shaking all over. I reached out to grab the doorknob, determined to break right into her room.
But I could not do it!
I froze right there, still trembling and chilled all over. There was a breeze coming through the hallway. But was it really that cold? The goosepimples stood out all over me, and only then did I realize that I was naked. I turned and went down to the bathroom. It was all I could do to function, my body was so tense, twisted up inside.
On the way back to my room, I seemed to hear voices from everywhere, the sound of a bed moving, little titters of laughters and pleasant sighs… and the music from the radio. I even thought I heard the refrigerator door close down in the kitchen.
I became dizzy and unable to stand up right. I was losing my balance. And the strangest thing was that I was so afraid to risk facing the truth, that hay biggest concern was that I might make some noise that would give me away. Carefully, I groped my way back into the bedroom, and seem to recall seeing Bob's blue silk pajamas lying across the foot of the bed just as they had been all day.