It's a strange feeling, like being a virgin all over again. Not only has it been over five years since ...well since, but Dan was the only man I had ever been with, the only man I had ever even dreamed about being with, aside from the recent escapade in my dreams with Zac.

The bed is warm still from our morning tryst under the smooth sheet. The sheet which he is now wrapped in walking to the bathroom. I watch the muscles of his back move making waves with every motion his body makes, and it's utterly fascinating to me.

It's late, very late in the morning and I need to start thinking about what the rest of my day holds, but I can't bear the thought of haivng to be released from this small section of heaven that we've now created.

"Ri...I'm gonna jump in the shower." I look up from my pillow to see him standing by the entrance to the bath still clad in the navy sheet. My body invountarily shivers in response to the vision of him. He grins.

That grin along with the one eyebrow he has raised is enough of a question from him. A sudden awareness of what has just happened between us washes over me like a tidal wave, I pull the soft blanket closer to my chin and smile.

"..be there in a sec." I don't even know who the person is that just said that. I have always been self conscious of my body. Under blankets or under the cover of dark is one thing completely different from in broad daylight or in a shower the size of my kitchen, yes, literally.

He turns with a dash of delight in a race for the shower, I know at the prospect of me being close behind. The phone rings, once, then a second time. I stare at it.

"Ri, grab that will you?" Comes his voice over the roar of the shower just yards away.

" Hello?" Silence.

Hello?" Again, silence. Then I hear a rustle in the phone. " Zac?" Says the female voice from the other end. It sounds familiar, and young.

"um..., Zac's not available, could I tell him who called?" I feel like a secretary rather than his lover laying in his bed. Sitting up, I look around for a pen in the drawer of the nightstand.

"It's his mother...and who is this?" My heart drops. I feel a ball of cotton suddenly choke my throat. I can't answer for just a moment.

"It's Clarissa." I finally manage to choke out in a small voice.

~*~

I can still hear her sighs and purrs in response to the feelings she is letting her body give in to. It's not something too many men will tell you, but those sounds that women make, at least the few that I have loved enough to share these intimate moments with, are as stimulating as the actual touch and sensation from the activity itself.

Ri is as innocent as they come. I know that she was married for many years and experienced as a result of that, but her naiveity took me by surprise.

I have been with one girl who was a virgin, it was my first time also, special that we got to share that with each other. I felt that again this time. Her tenative responses, her surprise when her body took off on it's own. It's been a long time for her, is it possible to forget?

I'm very comfortable with my body, it must come from being in a family where you get no privacy anyhow, so you learn to accept it. The tense feeling disolved soon after we slipped under the warm blankets, her last garment came off as did mine. Her touches were slow and tenative also, but with gentle prompting, she soon fell into a world of our own making, just her and I.

We have laid with each other for a long time, just soaking in the glow of each other, but nature is calling. I couldn't even begin to recall where a piece of clothing is to cover me for my walk across the room. My comfort with my body only extends so far in the harsh light of day. As cliche' as it is, I pull the sheet from the bed and tuck it around my waist.

The only move from her is to pull the remaining blanket across her breasts that were momentarily bared as I drug the sheet off.

We have shared our souls with each other in the most intimite way possible, yet asking her to share my shower, something that is not nearly as intimate, but more of a baring of a souls seems difficult for me to do.

I turn to catch her watching me from where she lay. She looks so small in the huge bed, almost lost in the blankets that remain.

"Ri.. I'm gonna jump in the shower.." I smile and raise one eyebrow, wondering if her imagination will take the lead. A momentary pause.

"I'll be there in a minute." She never ceases to amaze me.

I glance at the clock laying haphazardly on the counter. Almost eleven, Ike and Tay will be calling soon wondering where I am. They can wait. I have a shower to take. Dropping the sheet I open the door to the shower as I hear the phone ring.

One ring, then two, "Ri, can you get that?" I call over the roar of the shower. If she answers, they won't ask annoying questions, they'll just understand.

I step under the spray of the shower and wait for Ri to join me.

~*~

What do you say to the mother of the man you just had intimate relations with? There is momentary silence before she speaks.

"Clarissa, I just recieved a call from your sister. She was wanting Zac's number, hoping you were with him." Her voice is level and quiet. "I don't give out Zac's number, you may want to call her, she been looking for you all night." A sickening panic washes through my body as I hear the click of the phone being hung up on the other end.

I press the receiver into place with my hand shaking. I pick it back up and dial her number.

Ringing and no answer. More ringing. Hanging up once again, I try her cell phone number, she never has it on, I don't even know why she carries it.

" Ri..?" It didn't even ring on my end. She sounds panicked. "Ri, where the hell have you been?"

I sense her panic, but still the answer of: 'In bed with a rock drummer 8 years younger than me,' crosses my mind.

"I'm so sorry," is all that comes out. "Where are you, what's wrong?" Until now, the thought that my children have been with her for the past eighteen hours hadn't crossed my mind. The words that come next are ones that I never wanted to hear repeated again in my entire life.

"..At the hospital.." I feel like every bit of breath that is in me has been sucked from my body. You can only understand if you know that she was with Dan the night the icy roads took his life.

"They're fine, well, yeah...we're fine." Those words pulled me back from the edge I was teetering on.

A long muddled explanation comes rolling out, ending with the fact that there was an accident, not with them, but in front of them. Nick tried to help the passengers from the car in the ditch and fell, breaking his leg in the process. Sarah is fine, sitting beside her at that very moment.

She tells me they won't release Nick without me there. The tears begin to fall silently.

"I'm on my way."

~*~

"The water's going to get cold if you don't hurry.." I shout to her.

"Zac.." I barely hear her over the noise of the water. I don't see her, so I stick myhead out the door of the shower. She stands close by, fully dressed, gripping the front of her shirt closed. She is as white as a sheet.

"Oh my God, Ri..what's wrong?" She looks like the life has just been sucked from her.

"I..I need to go..home. Nick's hurt, he's at the hospital." I fumble for the shower controls turning them off, grabbing at the towel slung over the rack on the door. I grab her to try an pull her into my arms for comfort, she pulls away, turning to sit on the edge of bed.

Grasping the towel with one hand, I search frantically for shorts and clothing, my wet hair dripping everywhere.

I glance her direction, she sits with her head in her hands waiting for me to dress. Hurridly I slip into the most available clothes, then realizing that the blouse she wears is pulled together by her fingers.

I find a folded shirt and hand it to her without words. She accepts it and walks to the door in the bathroom. She closes it behind her. I can tell that this step forward we took this morning has now turned into the proverbial two steps back.

They say your life passes before your eyes in the last moments before your death. I'd hate to think that I was going to die, because that is just what is happening.

I want to block out many of the images that appear in my head, but there are those that I'd like to remember for as long as I'm allowed to live. Warm, comforting images of my children playing in the yard as they grew; hard, cold images like those of Dan as he lay in the coffin. The image I most fear flashes through my memory. The image of Zac and I in each others arms a mere hour before.

The truck engine is suddenly silent.

"Ri?" Zac's voice is small and tenative, not the familiar joyful bluster it normally contains aorund the edges.

I look at his warm eyes and I want to crawl into his arms . He looks sad, like a child that has lost their favorite toy. I can't do what every fiber in my being is urging me to do. Instead, I reach for the door handle and slide down to my feet. Not saying so much as a thank you or goodbye, my feet propel me towards the front entrance of the hospital, towards my child that lay inside.

I know that I want Zac to follow, to be beside me in a time of need, but I can't look back to see if I have ruined what might just be the last best thing that has ever happened to me. Rushing in the door I see Michelle and Sarah standing at the front of a hallway, obviously waiting for me to arrive.

The tears that have been underneath the surface since I got the call from Diana surge forward and rush down my face with heaving sobs.

" I am so sorry, so sorry..." I don't even know what I am apologizing for, but I feel some sort of terrible failure of my motherly duties for not being there when my child needed me. I tears almost turn to a laugh when I turn the corner and see my son obviously delighted by the attention of two young girls clad in pink striped uniforms.

"Hey mom." I can see right through his suave little act, he's his fathers son all right. I resist the urge to hug him and ruffle his hair in front of his admirers, or vice versa, whatever the case may be.

Much of the fear and guilt melt away as I see that he is so obviously alright. The pink striped young ladies disappear off to their other duties and I can now mother my child.

"Are you ok? What were you thinking? How did this happen. The motherly questions roll from my mouth until my sister, my daughter and my son all are looking at me as if I have lost it.

"I'm just glad you're ok."

MIchelle's eye's have darted over my left shoulder at least three times in the last minute. I fear that I might turn and see Zac standing nearby, but I fear almost as much, turning and not finding him.

~*~

She is methodicly chipping the nail poish off each nail as we drive towards the hospital. She hasn't said one word to me the entire drive. The entire 15 minutes.

I know I need to give her space, but the question is how much? I glance at her again as we pull into the front of the hospital. She is deep in thought and the truck engine subsiding pulls her back to the present.

She looks up and looks me in the eye without a smile, or an ounce of emotion. The look lasts for five long seconds or more and then she turns and jumps from the truck with a determination I haven't seen in many and darts across the front walk and through the doors.

I'm not sure what posess' me, but I also jump from the truck and follow her hurried retreat into the corridors. I see her greet a taller woman that looks clearly to be related to her, and I see Sarah aside the both of them. Sarah waves and then turns and follows them into the hall.

I feel like an intruder, so I linger outside to door to the emergency room. I can just see the top of her head and I can see Nick, obviously at that age of being torn in needing his mother and not wanting to need her.

The other womans eyes have darted to me several times. On this last time I met them and smiled, nervously.

It seems like hours I sit and wait as the doctor comes in and out. I'ts really only been a total of 20 minutes when I see the group starting to assemble, more than likely for release.

The woman's eyes meet mine once more and she smiles. She's definiltely family.

The moment I have been wanting and dreading at the same time arrives as Ri turns and sees me waiting in the hall. Her eyes meet mine briefly, she looks down and then looks back at me. The emptiness that was there has vanished and a smile brightens her face. I am almost amused at the the curious looks I am getting from the other woman.

"Zac.." Sarah yells much too loud for a hospital corridor. I make a shushing signal with my hand as she runs to greet me.

"Sarah..how are you doing?" She is at that stage between being a girl and a young woman, I remember so vivdly when my sisters were there. I look past her to Nick being wheeled out of the room with an impressive looking cast from his thigh to midshin.

"Now how the heck did you do that?" I chuckle.

"I broke it good, right above the knee, clean snap. The doctor showed me the x-rays! It looked like a a broken chicken bone." He seemed quite enamoured with all the attention he was getting from this.

"I'm MIchelle." the other namless woman offered her hand towards me. "I'm Ri's little sister." She seemed to say this with a glint in her eye. Ri snorts and throws a backhand to her shoulder, rolling her eyes.

"Younger by how much Michelle? Come on tell him." She laughs and shakes her head. "Okay, younger by 11 months. Now he knows." She looks back at her hard. She must think I am either blind or dumb to not see her nod in my direction and then look hard at her again.

To relieve some of the tension, I raise my hand to Ri's shoulder and brush my forefinger across the back of her neck. She tenses for a moment and then looks at me and smiles.

MIchelle has moved ahead with Sarah and the wheelchair. Again, I'm not dumb enough to not know that it's on purpose.

"Thank you." It was just barely above a whisper. I stop and pull her close into an embrace.

"Thanks for staying." Her voice is a bit stronger this time. I see Michelle glance over her shoulder to us and smile as I move around to sit in a chair which brings me nearly to eye level with Ri.

" It's not something you need to thank me for, Ri. I care about you, I care about what matters to you." I don't want to say what I know needs to come next but being Ri, I know she won't ever broach the subject.

" We um, took a step this morning that maybe....maybe we should have waited. Wait, that came out wrong. I think were were both ready fior this step, but maybe our relationship wasn't ready for it...? As strange as that sounds.." She interupted mid- sentence.

"...it wasn't mistake Zac, I believe that all things happen as they are supposed to happen.." She raised her hand to my face and leaned in to kiss me gentley. Looking me in the eye I can see the beginnings of tears around the edges.

"Thank you for your patience, Zac, most men.." Now it was my turn to interupt her.

"Ri, I'm not most men." Her face glowed and then just as quickly dropped and flushed white. "Oh God..."

"What..wha?"

"The phone call...this morning." She looked like she was scared to tell me. "Your mom...Michelle had somehow called her. She's the one who called. She didn't sound happy Zac. Michelle told her she had been looking for me all night."

An uncomfortable pit formed in my stomach. As open a relationship as I have with my mother, I am sure that she truely believes that all 28 of my years I have saved myself for "the one." No really, it's true.

This has not been a day that would rate in my top ten. Sarah sick at school, Zac and I are still having a disagreement about him talking with his mom and now Nick misses the bus. Thats three times into town uneccessarily and I am backed up with work.

Nick calls and says to meet him at the front of school and now after 10 minutes he's a no show. I pull up into a legal parking space and head to go get him, probably a huge no no for the mom of a high school boy.

"Are you Nick's mom?" I turn halfway up the walk to find a young girl with too much gold eye shadow asking me with a small smile.

"Yes, have you seen him?, he was supposed..."

"I'd hide too if I had a mom robbing the cradle like you too..." She runs of to a group of girls matching her appearance almost perfectly and they all break into gales of laughter as I stand rooted to the cement flushed with embarrassment and shriveling inside.

I want desperatly to continue on my mission, but every cell inside me is urging back into the safe confines of my car. I bend to the urging of my body rather than my mind and head back to the car, willing the tears to stay buried inside.

I swipe one lone, hot tear from my cheek as I look up to find Nick approaching. "Hey mom, sorry, I forgot a book I had to run...Why are you crying?"

Something I could never hide from him, always my emotional one, he's especially in tune to my emotions as well.

"Oh no, just something in my eye." I lie while rubbing dramatically at it as if to add proof.

I want to listen to Nicks banter about school on the way home, but the comment made by his peer is eating at me. I am what she says, an embarrassment, a cradle robber. How do I think I could have a long term relationship wiht a man like Zac. This fears have ate at me for the entire time of our relationship, but this last week, they have been more realized.

Zac didn't go to the weeky dinner with his family. He, in fact has avoided the family, beyond his brothers, completely. That's so unlike him.

His excuse was he wanted to spend the time with me, not them. I'd love to think that was the truth, but I know it's not. He says he doesn't know what to say to his mom when he see's her, I know it'll be uncomfortable, but for heaven's sake he's 28.

"So mom, can I?.." I turn to look at my young son who has grown into such a man. I wonder if he will ever not want to talk to me about things as important as his choice of mates. "Mom...?"

"Sure hun, sure." I answer hoping that he wasn't asking to enroll in the armed forces or something equally as important. I reach up to touch his face that was once so soft and feel the stubble of his peachy beard. How did all this happen so fast?

~*~

Ike and Tay always said that great music came out of stress and misery. As I sit here scratching randomly on a yellow tablet, all that is running through my mind is random explanations for why Ri was with me all night and why she was answering the phone while I was in the shower.

Another knock on the door that I am trying to ignore, but I know that knock, it's Ike. Taylor I can disuade with no answer but not Ike. "Yeah.." The answer is flat, just like my mood.

"Hey Zac.." He comes bounding in the door much too gleeful for my mood. Flopping down in the chair, I can see that an agenda is just underneath the surface.

"Ike just spill it, you are no good at being coy. Never have been, never will be."

"Sheesh Zac, touchy, touchy... But okay, you're right. I just got off the phone with the queen mother and she is requesting our presence for dinner, all of us..." He looked way to happy about this. "...This was after a grilling about you, and Ri I guess. I didn't mention the little tiff you two had in the parking lot today, that would have made her way to happy."

My head shot up at the comment about the disagreement Ri and I had at lunch today. Ike had to be the nosiest son of a... "What do you mean tiff?" I tried to feign innocence, fearing that questions regarding this were next. The eyebrow went up.

Damn, no escaping this, he knew I was covering.

"Zac I was sitting in an office with a window 10 feet from where you were sitting in a car with her. Let's just say yoiu wwere haiving a passionate discussion." He paused, I think hoping for me to interject with my explanation but when I came up with nothing, he got up to leave. "Zac, Mom never found out with Tay or I and man I would not ever have wanted to be in your shoes, but you have toget it over with soon. She's your mom Zac, she won't hate you. He shut the door quietly leaving me in a worse mood yet.

I'm not going. I decided finally on the way up my drive. The phone goes off and I'm going to order a pizza and watch wrestling. She wants to corner me with everyone home, there is no way in hell I am going to talk with her about this with everyone there.

I feel so trapped. Ri, Ike, Mom. Confrontation is something I have never dealt well with.

~*~

The dull headache of yesterday afternoon has passed. With Sarah and Nick both at school I've thrown myself into the overdue accounts that haunted me all evening as I sat with a sappy movie and ice cream drowning my middle age sorrows.

I made a decision somewhere in the night. A decision that is going to put me into hot water with Zac, but one that should ease my standing with his mother and therefore turn Zac back into the person I once knew.

Di accepted my invatation to lunch today with what felt like a relieved cheerfulness. With only 1 hour before she arrived, I gathered the paper mess from the table to move to my room and prepare a small lunch that I knew all too well would go uneaten.

Waves of fear and incdecision pulse though me as the last hour ticks away. I know I should not be doing this, but I also see how I cannot do what I am doing.

I hear the crunch of the tires on the gravel, it's time.

~*~

The one morning I come to work anywhere near on time and no one is here. No one except the receptionist who just about jumped out of her skin when I asked where the coffee filters were.

I was hoping to find Ike, or even Taylor, anyone who could give me a much neede ego bump before aI called mom and laid my head in the gallows.

I stare on the phone on the desk willing it to magically dial mom and stick itself to my ear all while pulling the perfect words that she wanted to hear from my mouth.

Somehow I find the phone in my hand ringing. ringing with no answer. I hang the phone up staring at it, wondering where my mother would be on a Tuesday morning.

A door slamming followed by both brothers leaning over the desk. "Good job, don't show up after she specifically asks you to and then don't answer the phone. Or in mom's words "He must be with her!" they trade off ranting at me and I have to laugh, they remind me of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

"Don't laugh" They both echo." You are in so much shit...Now dad's in on it. Guess how much he liked you disrespecting and avoiding mom.

"Calm down, calm down. I've been trying to call her all morning, now she's the one avoiding me."

"Not like I wouldn't blame her..." Ike mutters as he waltzes out the door. Tay stays, arms crossed looking at me with a look he's not allowed to have. That's the 'I'm so disappointed in you' look, but it's dad's, coming from Tay, my head hurts, this is all too much.

[Chapters 16, 17...and more soon!]

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