Double Dippin' (6 page)

Had she gotten hold of them while they were still young, who knows…maybe they’d think of her as their real mother.

Oh well, no use crying over spilled milk. She was their foster mother and she’d fight those city people tooth and nail if they ever tried to uproot and remove the boys from her loving Christian home.

While Shane and Tariq finished up in the backyard, Ms. Holmes went to her bedroom to get dressed. There was a tap on her bedroom door. “Miz Holmes?” Shane called on the other side of the door.

“What is it, baby?”

“Do we have any Band-aids?”

The bedroom door swung open. “What’s wrong? Did you hurt yourself?” Her eyes were big; her voice filled with concern.

“Just a little nick.” Shane was squeezing his middle finger, trying to keep the blood from spurting.

“Oh my Lord!” Ms. Holmes rushed Shane into the bathroom and ran cold water over the wound. “It’s not too deep, thank goodness. Well, young man…No more hedge-trimming for you. Sit down.” She nodded toward the side of the bathtub. Shane sat down and Ms. Holmes applied an ointment and carefully covered the cut with three Band-aids.

Shane watched her work on his finger and then looked up with tear-glistened eyes. “Miz Holmes?”

“Yes, honey pie?”

“Can I…” His voice cracked. “Never mind.” He shook his head and then lowered his head self-consciously.

“What’s wrong, Shane? You can talk to me about anything.” Ms. Holmes lifted Shane’s chin, forcing him to meet her eyes. “I want you to talk to me about whatever is on your mind.”

“I wanna call you Mom,” Shane blurted and then burst into tears.

Ms. Holmes instantly sat beside Shane and gathered the crying teenager in her arms. “Of course you can call me Mom. There’s no reason to feel ashamed about needing some motherly love.”

It felt natural to comfort a distressed child. However, she didn’t realize that her slightly opened robe, partially revealed her triple D-sized bra and exposed talcum-dusted cleavage.

With his face pressed into his foster mother’s bosom, his tears mingled with talcum powder, the distraught boy was slowly soothed by her womanly softness. When his wandering hand desperately sought and rested upon her enormous cups, Ms. Holmes’s first impulse was to swat his hand away.

But while her confused mind struggled to accept the gesture as being as innocent as an infant’s flailing arms or a groping two-year-old, Shane stuck his hands beneath her robe and deftly unhooked the back closure of her bra.

She knew she should push him away, but the boy was in such a peculiar state, Ms. Holmes didn’t think he fully realized what he was doing. Perched on the side of the bathtub, Ms. Holmes sat trance-like while Shane, whimpering and crying, tentatively touched and then began to squeeze her breasts. In a matter of seconds, Shane’s lips attached to her nipple. Helplessly, she allowed him to suckle one breast and then the other as if he were a newborn babe.

When Dolores Holmes finally came to her senses, she gently pulled her nipple from Shane’s mouth. Her heart was thumping hard against her chest as she shook her head and wagged a finger. “Boy, I can’t let you do that anymore. That’s what babies do to their mommas—not big boys like you. Do you understand?”

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Shane muttered. He looked perplexed.

She patted his arm. “You didn’t mean nothing by it, I know that. But other people wouldn’t see it that way. Now you can’t speak a word of this to a soul. Do you hear me?” Fear of unimaginable consequences caused Dolores Holmes’s voice to rise.

“Yes,” he said and nodded his head.

Ms. Holmes managed to avoid Shane for the rest of the morning, but by late afternoon when it was time to shop for groceries, she called Shane and Tariq, who were playing with their Super Soakers in the backyard.

“Did you call us Mom?” Shane asked in a normal voice as if he’d been calling her
Mom
all of his life.

Tariq did a double-take. He looked at Ms. Holmes to see if she’d heard Shane and then he shifted his gaze to his brother. “What did you call Miz Holmes?”

“I called her Mom; it’s cool. She wants us to call her Mom.”

Embarrassed, Ms. Holmes glanced away. She nervously adjusted the hem of her dress, covering her knees—unconsciously trying to cover her sins. Some kind of mother she was turning out to be. She’d have to sit down and have a nice long talk with Shane. What he’d done—what she’d allowed him to do—was unnatural and it could never happen again.

In the Acme Supermarket later that day, Ms. Holmes steered the cart and absently perused her shopping list. Tormented by thoughts of hell and damnation, she couldn’t concentrate on the scrawled list of household items.

“Mom?”

It wasn’t a term she was accustomed to, so she continued to ponder the shopping list.

“Mom!” Shane persisted. Both Ms. Holmes and Tariq shot confused glances at Shane. A muscle twitched in Ms. Holmes’s face.

“Start calling her Mom. She’s our mother now,” Shane told Tariq. “She’s gonna be our mother forever; we ain’t moving nowhere else. Ain’t that right, Mom?”

Ms. Holmes nodded dully. What had she done? How had she allowed something innocent and good to turn to devil’s work? Shane hadn’t realized that what he’d done was wrong; he was just starved for love. He wasn’t responsible for his actions; that ol’ Satan was always busy. She’d have to try to explain to Shane that she was willing to be his mother but she just couldn’t give him what he’d missed out on as a baby. He was a big boy and he’d have to behave like one.

With the shopping completed, Tariq steered the cart up to the cashier. The bill came to seventy-eight dollars and thirty-nine cents. Ms. Holmes opened
her wallet expecting to find five crisp twenties, but instead there were only four. She gave the cashier the bills and looked off in thought.
Hmm
. She shrugged off her doubt as she accepted her change and decided she’d probably miscounted the money.

“Come on, boys; let’s load these groceries in the car,” she said cheerfully. But her forced cheerfulness flew out the window, the moment Shane called her Mom.

“Yes, honey?” she nervously responded.

“Can me and Tariq have twenty dollars?”

Ms. Holmes almost choked. “Twenty dollars apiece?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Shane answered respectfully.

At first, Tariq looked as surprised as his foster mother, then he scowled at his brother as if appalled that Shane would request such a large sum on his behalf.

“What do you two boys need all that money for?” She gave Shane and then Tariq a disapproving look, although she was already envisioning herself pulling up to the ATM machine. “Huh, what do you two need all that money for?” she repeated, attempting to delay the inevitable transaction and desperately needing to make sense of the strange events that had transpired that day.

“Pretty please, Mom,” Shane cajoled. “We just wanna go out and have some fun. Me and Tariq don’t never hardly have no spending money.”

Too weary and guilt-ridden to disagree, Ms. Holmes double-parked and withdrew the money from the closest ATM.

Instead of riding the bus, Shane and Tariq saved money by walking to the movie complex on Fortieth and Walnut Streets. The movie Shane wanted to see didn’t start for another hour, so the boys walked to the arcade on Spruce Street. Inside, Shane sauntered over to the arcade attendant. “I need change for a twenty.”

The attendant counted out twenty dollars in quarters.

“You’re gonna spend all your money in here?” Tariq asked in amazement. “I thought we were gonna catch a movie later.”

“Don’t worry; there’s more where that came from.” Shane pulled out another twenty and gave Tariq a wink.

“Wow! Where’d you get that?”

“Shootin’ craps,” he lied. Shane had actually lifted the twenty out of Ms. Holmes’s wallet. It wasn’t the first time he’d taken money from her and it wouldn’t be the last.

S
hane sat at the kitchen table looking sullen and mean. While Tariq devoured the ham and eggs and guzzled down orange juice, Shane sat slouching and defiantly refused to touch his food.

“You ain’t eating, man?” Tariq asked. Ms. Holmes, busy straightening up in the kitchen, cut a worried eye at Shane. His mood changed like the weather, she now realized.

“What’s the matter, honey pie? Don’t you have an appetite?”

Shane shook his head solemnly.

Ms. Holmes’s instincts told her not to pry. Just leave the boy alone until he got in a better mood. “Tariq, are you going to the swimming pool today?” She tried to sound upbeat but was terribly disturbed.

Before responding, Tariq gave Shane a questioning gaze. Shane refused to meet his eyes, so Tariq turned to his foster mother and gave her a shrug.

“Well, you boys go on outside and get some fresh air, I got a lot of house work to do and I know you two don’t want to be cooped up in here doing chores,” she said with false gaiety. Shane’s mood was working hard on her nerves; she could use some breathing room.

“It’s burning up out here, Shane. Let’s go to the pool. We’ll have fun. Come on, man,” Tariq prodded. Shane finally nodded. Tariq slapped his brother’s palm, obviously delighted that Shane had given his stamp of approval. “I’ll get your swimming trunks,” Tariq yelled as he bounded the stairs.

The air between her and Shane was thick. Trying to block out the bad vibes the boy was sending in her direction, Ms. Holmes hummed a spiritual as she wiped down counters that were already sparkling clean.

Tariq came down with their swimming gear packed in a book bag. As they headed for the door, Shane said, “Hold up; I gotta pee. I’ll be right back.” He turned around and slowly took the stairs. A few minutes later, he reappeared, his expression more pleasant; his mood seemed lighter.

“See you later, Miz Holmes,” Tariq yelled.

“Okay, baby. Y’all be safe and don’t go anywhere near those street corner hoodlums. They’re up to no good at all times.”

“We won’t,” Tariq hollered as the screen door banged closed.

Just as she was expelling a sigh of relief, Shane came back inside, walked to the kitchen, and bent low enough to give her a hug. “I’m sorry, Mom. Okay? Sometimes I just get sad; I don’t know why.” He rubbed her back as he spoke and then lowered his hands to her broad behind.

“Shane!”

He jerked upright. “What?”

“You know what you’re doing isn’t right. Now where’s your brother? Hurry up and catch up with him before one of those hoodlums tries to lead him astray.”

“Tariq’s all right. He’s probably already at the pool. I told him I’d meet him in a little while.”

“Well, go ahead and meet him.”

“But I gotta talk to you.” He looked and sounded deeply distressed.

“What’s wrong?” Ms. Holmes asked in a frightened whisper, she really didn’t want to hear the answer.

“It’s my mind. I be thinking all kinds of things. I might need to see a psychiatrist or something.”

“Why do you think something crazy like that?”

“My real mother was crazy; I heard it can be passed on.” He looked tormented.

“There’s not a crazy bone in your body. You’re all right. Don’t think about her anymore.”

“Why not? You won’t act like a mother.”

“I’m doing the best I can. Now Shane, this conversation is getting out of hand. You go on over to the pool and look after Tariq.”

“Tariq’s gonna be all right,” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “But what
about me?” A deep rumbling moan started deep in Shane’s throat. It escalated to a pitiful sound that shocked Ms. Holmes into taking a seat on the sofa.

“I want my Mommy. I want my Mommy. I want my Mommy,” he chanted over and over, tears running down his face. Ms. Holmes did the natural thing that any woman in her place would do—she sat down to console the distraught child. Shane, with his brooding sensitivity, sometimes had to be handled with kid gloves.

“It’s gonna be all right,” she said in a comforting voice. But his lament went into another gear. “I want my Mommy.” Desperate to comfort him, she pulled him to her chest, hugging and rocking him like a caring mother.

She continued cooing and uttering comforting sounds while Shane unbuttoned her blouse, unhooked her bra, and desperately licked and sucked her breasts.

She quoted scripture in her head. Said a quick prayer about the Lord giving her guidance to help such a poor motherless child. And by the time Shane had wormed a hand beneath her skirt, her rational mind was useless and she was powerless to fight off the hand that had worked itself inside her balloon-like panties and begun stroking her fleshy mound. Her mind screamed for her to put a stop to Shane’s probing long thick finger that made sloshing sounds as it went in and out of her syrupy private part. Her yearning body, however, betrayed her. Celibate for the past five years, her orgasm came sudden and strong, causing her to tighten her fleshy thighs around Shane’s hand, trapping his finger as she shouted out loud, “Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh sweet Lord Jesus.”

And when she finally stopped shaking, when her heart rate calmed down, she dropped her head in shame. She was now being comforted by Shane, who hugged her and told her, “Don’t cry, Mom. It’s gonna be all right.”