Mad Monday
by Pan
Chapter 11
The next day was a Saturday. No school, no work.
Well, technically any day could be a work day for me; the benefit of being your own boss. But we’d decided many years ago to make Saturdays “Family Day”, something that Belle had loved as a little girl (and increasingly resented as the years went by).
She hadn’t been home for a Family Day in almost a year—probably off with ‘Spike’.
When my wife (in Belle’s body) entered the kitchen and put on some toast, Belle (in my wife’s body) practically squawked in alarm.
“Honey!” she said, slightly too intensely. “What are you doing here?”
“Family Day,” my wife said, rolling Belle’s eyes.
“Yes,” my daughter replied, through Mary’s gritted teeth. “But what about…you know.”
“What?”
I had to admit, my wife was doing an excellent job of aping my daughter’s mannerisms and attitude. If I didn’t know any better, I wouldn’t have been able to tell there was anyone but Belle in there.
“You know. The game!”
“Mo-om! God, you’re such a freak. How do you know about the game? Are you spying on me?”
“No, no!”
It was almost funny, watching my daughter try to desperately back-peddle.
“No, I just, uh, heard about it. From Spike’s mom. She…wanted to know if we were coming.”
“God, you’ve been talking to Spike’s MOM? What is wrong with you?”
“Honey, he seems to be…he seems to be a, uh, a nice…young…lad. Yes.”
To my surprise, tears welled up in my daughter’s eyes. Mary really knew what she was doing.
“Well he can’t be THAT nice because he’s been sleeping with LACEY for the last two months!”
“What!? That SLUT!”
I looked away to stifle a laugh, and when I glanced back, I noticed that my wife’s eyes were growing wet as well.
Crap. I had forgotten that this was the first Belle was hearing about her own break-up.
“Uh, honey,” I said, putting a gentle hand on my wife’s arm. She pulled it away in anger, before realizing what she was doing.
“Sorry, sweetie-pie,” Belle said, clenching my wife’s teeth. I made a mental note to move up her next dental appointment; I very much doubted my daughter was brushing. “I just…I didn’t know that my daughter had been dumped.”
“I didn’t even know she was dating.”
“You don’t know anything.”
There was an awkward pause as my two girls realized they’d said the exact same thing at the exact same time. I side-stepped the entire situation, picked up my iPad, and pretended to continue reading the news.
“Honey,” my daughter said, in a fairly good impression of my wife. “Are you okay?”
“Like you even care,” my wife muttered, doing a superb impression of my daughter.
“Of course I care,” Belle said, opening my wife’s eyes slightly as she realized the truth of what she was saying. I tried to keep my attention on the tablet screen, but it was hard—was this the breakthrough we’d been looking for? Was Belle finally getting it?
The next words she said sent my hopes crashing through the floor, and almost doubled my heart-rate.
“Belle, get your bikini—we’re going to the beach!”
It would have been far easier to avoid noticing my daughter’s body…if my attention wasn’t constantly being drawn to it.
“Look at her, cuddle-pot!” my daughter said excitedly, using my wife’s hand to point. As if she needed to point—the bikini-clad teenager would have stood out in almost any crowd. The half-dozen families building sand castles provided zero competition.
“I see her, chicken licken.”
“Doesn’t she look great?”
My wife’s eyes were shining with pride, and I realized what was happening. We never really get a chance to see ourselves, not really. Everyone is their own worst critic, and looking at your body through your own eyes means you’re never going to truly appreciate what’s there.
Especially, I suspect, if you’re a teenage girl.
“She’s beautiful, honey,” I responded simply, and she patted my arm with joy.
Mary, for her part, seemed to be having a great time. She’d dropped our daughter’s trademark slouch, and returned to her own familiar gait—shoulders back, chin held high.
She was wandering up and down the waves, and seemed to almost be feeding off the stares she was getting. As I mentioned, Belle’s body was without comparison—her legs were long and toned, her stomach was flat, and her breasts were…well, they were larger than I’d been expecting. Not comically large, but certainly quite ample on her young teenage frame.
I was so glad I’d gotten off the night before. I started scanning the beach, trying to see if there were any black women in bikinis I could use to distract myself.
Before I could find anything, Mary’s hand gripped my arm.
“They’re here,” she said excitedly.
Too excitedly.
“Who?”
She struck an innocent pose.
“Just, uh…just some of Belle’s friends from school.”
“Oh no,” I muttered under my breath.
I’d never met the guy. I would have been quite happy to go the rest of my life without meeting him. But the moment I laid eyes on the boy, I recognized him.
Spike.
He was exactly my daughter’s type. Piercings, tattoos…and who comes to the beach in a leather jacket? Somehow, he managed to avoid looking like he was about to melt.
Somehow, I was loathe to admit, he looked…cool.
I immediately hated him.
Judging by the daggers shooting from my wife’s eyes, I guessed that the piece of arm candy draped over him was Lacey.
“I thought he had a game,” I murmured to myself.
“They always come to the beach after the game,” Belle responded, using my wife’s arm to tug me forward. “Let’s go.”
“Wait, what?”
“Let’s go. I want to see what’s going to happen.”
“Button-pants,” I said softly, “isn’t this…y’know, Belle’s business? Shouldn’t we give her some privacy?”
“Oh! Oh, yeah.”
My daughter fell back, the soft smirk never leaving Mary’s lips.
“We can see everything from here anyway.”