The pond had always been the boys’ favorite destination. The existing boat dock was ancient, nearly a hundred years old. It was constructed of massive wooden piles and rough-hewn timber.
The tall pillars of wood on the front of the dock formed the sides of an arch over the forty foot pier. Hanging from the wooden pillars, ten or twelve feet overhead, was a sign proclaiming ’49ers Pond’. The words were burned into the wide wooden plank.
“Will you join us, Mrs. Clayton?” asked Chris politely after the clamor of approval around the table subsided. Chris and Matt were the shyest and most introverted of the young men. And this was the first time either of them had joined the conversation.
“Only if you bad boys can control your raging testosterone,” said Allyson as she looked reproachfully around the table. She sensed that they had been talking about what happened in the kitchen and she was disappointed with all of them, especially Josh.
“They’ve all promised to be on their best behavior,” replied Josh on behalf of his friends as he looked toward Mike and Andy. “Haven’t you!”
“Yeah, sure,” replied Andy grudgingly as the others chimed in with a chorus of affirmative responses.
“OK, then,” said Allyson, “I’d be happy to join you. But can you boys clean up. I want to lay down for a few minutes. I’ve been up since about three.”
“Why so early?” asked Nick, the most inquisitive of the boys.
“Oh, I had a bad dream last night,” replied Allyson wistfully. “And I couldn’t get back to sleep. That’s why I got such an early start.”
Allyson paused for a moment as she got up from her chair to leave. But then it occurred to her that the boys attempts at polite conversation during lunch were their way of saying sorry without actually doing so.
“And a good thing too!” said Allyson, prolonging the conversation as she walked to the end of the table and looked back at her boys. She smiled reassuringly at each of them. “There was fog and I got caught behind a traffic accident for over an hour.”
“Yeah, us to,” said Matt, lamely trying to find an excuse to extend the conversation.
“That’s what Josh said,” replied Allyson. “Was anyone hurt?”
“There were ambulances,” said Nick. “So yeah, it appeared so. They had to drag the three cars away on flatbed trucks. They were a mangled mess.”
“That’s a shame,” replied Allyson, giving her boys another broad smile. “You boys go have a good swim. “I’ll try to find that bikini you like Dan and join you. I’m sure it is in one of the drawers.”
“Thanks, Mrs. C,” replied Dan. “I’ll bring my camera. We’ll see you in a little while. Thanks for fixing us lunch.”
Suddenly all of her boys were effusive in expressing their thanks for lunch and for inviting them to the ranch.
“You go have a good time at the pond,” said Allyson, smiling again at the boys before turning and heading toward her bedroom.
~~~~~
Allyson bolted upright in bed, her heart racing and her mind reeling. She had just had the same dream again. She was naked and covered in sweat as she awoke, even though a cool mountain breeze was blowing through the open window.
She got out of bed and went to check that the door remained locked. Even though the boys had behaved at lunch and had made their feeble attempt to say they were sorry without actually saying it, she thought it best to keep the door locked―just in case. Especially since she had wanted to sleep naked and enjoy the cool breeze wafting in through the open window.
On the chair next to the door was her tote, so she fished out her diary. Walking over to the small dressing table in the corner of the room she sat down to record the contents of her latest dream before the details faded from her mind. She pulled the bookmark from the middle of the diary pages and used the small key that was attached to open the small lock.
This would make for an interesting session with her therapist Irene back in Menlo Park, thought Allyson as she began to write. It had been the same dream as the night before. But this time she could see the men’s faces. They were no longer shrouded in darkness―they were her boys, grown into men! And the man standing away from the bed with the camera, and whose voice she had heard, was her stepson Josh.
Allyson was startled by the revelation. It all started to make sense to her now. She had begun having these dreams right after she invited Josh and his friends to join her at the ranch. Now she wondered―had it been her subconscious warning her what might happen if she surrounded herself with a group of horny young men at her remote ranch.
There was another possibility too, and one that Allyson found uncomfortable to think about―perhaps subconsciously she WANTED it to happen. Allyson was skeptical of her therapist’s conclusion that she suffered from sexual addiction, but perhaps this was the proof her therapist was correct.
After two years of celibacy, partially brought on by Covid, did Allyson feel compelled once again to surrender to her addiction.
This would make for a good conversation with her therapist, Allyson decided. Especially since Mike and Andy had already tried to behave like those shadowy sex partners from her previous dreams and she had almost surrendered to her urges.
Suddenly Allyson remembered the conversation when her therapist Irene had told her about the ‘Jocasta Complex’ when they were discussing her dreams about Josh. Irene had explained that Jocasta was Oedipus’ mother.
In psychoanalytic theory, the Jocasta complex is the incestuous sexual desire of a mother towards her son. Allyson was beginning to wonder if she was secretly lusting after all her ‘sons’!
Allyson knew that her therapist would want to explore this further, perhaps further than she would like. Subconsciously, did she actually want the boys to ravish her? Had she set herself up for just that!
Subconsciously, was that why she had invited them to the ranch in the first place―where she would be alone with them―away from prying eyes? As Allyson looked at herself in the mirror, she searched for the answer within herself.
Allyson spent about ten minutes writing down her recollections of the latest dream in a sort of stream of consciousness style. She then added the questions she was asking herself and others she wanted to ask her therapist before putting the diary away.
Walking into the bathroom, Allyson took a quick shower to wash the sweat away. In an act of shear vanity, she applied makeup, even though she knew it would wash away the first time she plunged into the pond. But she compulsively wanted to look good in front of the boys. As she applied the makeup she felt kind of silly, like a vain high school girl who had gone boy crazy.
After she finished her makeup, Allyson continued to sit at the dressing table staring at herself in the mirror. Gazing back at her was a woman who looked ten years younger than her actual age. She was proud of that. It was a woman who had just spent ten years married to a man twenty-five years older than her. A man who had led her in directions sexually that she would never have gone on her own.
The woman she was looking at in the mirror was closer in age to the young men she thought of as her sons than she had been to her husband. Allyson was proud that she still looked like she was in her early twenties. Any stranger watching her with ‘her boys’ would probably assume she was one of their girlfriends―a really cute girlfriend―Allyson told herself as she smiled into the mirror.
She was getting fidgety as she combed out her hair. Why was she carrying on this strange internal conversation with herself? Where was she going with this? Why was she applying rouge to her lips? Why was she applying rouge to her nipples? For God’s sake! Why was she applying rouge to her labia as she used to do before one of the trysts with their friends?
The hair stood up on the back of Allyson’s head as a chill ran down her spine. For Christ’s sake! Was she really thinking about surrendering to Mike and Andy and the other boys if they kept after her? Her answer frightened her. The truth was that she wasn’t sure!
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