Auntie Kim's Treat

Clark leaned out off the curb to look around the bend in the street, then looked the other way just for something to do. He checked his phone. She was twenty minutes late, no missed calls. He considered calling her, but he was nervous enough about this trip. He always got tongue tied around Auntie Kim, ever since he was five and noticed her beautiful round breasts, threatening to spill at times from the top of her shirt. He got a little hard thinking about the hug she had given him at graduation, the last time he had seen her. Two years had gone by quickly, he hadn’t been back home. He wouldn’t even be going to his parents’ anniversary party if not for Auntie Kim’s offer to pick him up on her way.

He looked at the message arranging meeting time and place, confirming he was at the right address, and Auntie Kim was twenty-three minutes late. His mother had always complained about how unreliable she could be; a free spirit is great to have around, she said, when she decides to show up.

“Clark, is that you?” Auntie Kim walked up behind him, from the direction of the house. Dressed in a blue blouse with a plunging neckline and a skirt that split for her right thigh as she walked, she raised her arms toward him. “It’s great to see you, Kiddo! What are you doing out here? Why didn’t you come to the door?”

“I… I didn’t realize this was… I thought you were… sorry.”

Auntie Kim laughed as she embraced him. “You’re so sweet, I could just eat you up!” she said. She led him into the house by his hand, then pointed at her suitcase leaning against the island in a huge open kitchen. “Bye Honey, I’m going!”

“It was great seeing you, Kim, stop by anytime,” called a voice from the back rooms.

“Grab that,” Kim said as Clark followed her to the door. He picked up the suitcase and carried it to the car in the driveway as she popped the trunk so he could put it in.

“Is this your car?”

“You like it?” she asked, opening the shining red door of the Toyota Supra and swinging in behind the wheel.

“Yeah, it’s gorgeous. It’s perfect for you, too, you look like… You- you look good in it,” Clark stammered, blood rushing in both his heads. His jaw hanging as he looked at her, he couldn’t believe she was in her forties, in the same great, generous shape as he remembered, and her hemlines had only gotten shorter.

Auntie Kim laughed, shutting her door. Clark rounded the car and took his backpack into his hands, setting it in his lap as he sat in the seat next to hers. “You could put that in the trunk, too.”

Clark shook his head. “So whose house is this?”

“A friend of mine. We’ve been at a few of the same seminars. I got into town last night, so I called him and invited myself over,” Kim said as she backed out of the driveway. She pulled off down the quiet street with smooth control and glanced at him with a smile. “Look at you, you’ve really filled out. You look like a real man, now! How’s school?”

“It’s good,” Clark said, blushing.

“Your mom says you’ve been so busy, you haven’t been home?”

“Yeah.”

“Not once in two years?”

Clark shook his head.

“How have you been so busy for the last two years you never made it home to visit your dear old mom and dad?”

Clark shrugged, clearing his throat.

“Been too busy hitting the gym?” she asked, squeezing his forearm. “Or is your girlfriend monopolizing all your time?”

His face burning, Clark tried to get over the stutter he developed just for this occasion.

Auntie Kim laughed, and his difficulties only increased as he became even more flustered. “Relax, Clark,” she said, but how did she expect putting her hand on his leg would help with that? “Are you sure you don’t want that bag in the back–?”

“No, I do not,” he said, somewhat more forcefully than intended.

“Okay, sorry,” she said, putting her hand back on the wheel. “Do you have a girlfriend? Your mom said you have a girlfriend.” She glanced at him so he shook his head again, and she sighed. “This is going to be a really long drive.”

Clark felt his throat tighten, and he fought to control his composure. He told himself that Auntie Kim was right; this was a long trip, and he’d only managed to ruin five minutes so far. “Sorry, Auntie Kim,” he said. “I guess I’m just nervous. It’s been so long, and I messed up not figuring that you’d be at the place you told me to go. Like, duh, I’m supposed to be smart.” He laughed at himself, relieved when she laughed along. “And Marnie and I broke up a few months ago. I haven’t gotten around to mentioning it to Mom. Actually, it might be better if you did.”

Auntie Kim glanced at him with a smirk. “Like when you got that C minus in dance?”

Clark laughed harder, knocking himself a little looser. “Exactly. It’ll be easier to hear from you.”

“Well, okay, but she’ll want details, so you’re going to have to tell me a few. Too busy at school? Or at the gym?”

“School. The gym is just how I’ve been dealing with stress.”

“You must be under a lot of stress. So, what happened? Tell me everything.”

Clark settled into the bucket seat, feeling like he was thirteen again and he could tell Auntie Kim anything. Well, almost anything. “We met at work last summer break. She’s a cashier in the cafeteria, and I do prep.”

“You’re a cook?”

“No, I never cook there, just chop stuff. We started hanging out, then sort of dating, then real dating, I guess, by the end of the summer. When we went back to class, we tried to make it work, but she wanted more time than I had.”

“Such a driven young man,” Auntie Kim said, fluttering her eyelashes at him. “I hope you let her down gently.”

“Oh, she dumped me,” Clark admitted. “I kept getting wrapped up in coursework and forgetting to meet her, not returning calls… I was a bad boyfriend.”

“Well, bad for her, maybe,” Auntie Kim gave a haughty shrug. “I hate when men cling and want to spend just all the time together, you know?”

“I… I guess. Anyway, she found out I’d started going to the gym, and that was kind of her last straw. She’d been complementing the changes in my physique until she found out it took up my time. It didn’t help when I told her I work out to reduce my stress, and she kept causing more.”

“Ooh,” Auntie Kim said.

“Yeah. I still see her at work, too. It’s been awkward. I’m going to look for another job when I have time.”

“That all seems very reasonable,” Auntie Kim said. “Why didn’t you tell your mother?”

Clark looked out the window as they turned a corner, rubbing the back of his neck. “She was just so happy that I had a girlfriend.”

Auntie Kim laughed, and as always, she looked gorgeous while doing it. The morning sun shone through her deep auburn hair and over her plump lips as they curled into a smile. Clark adjusted his backpack again as her face turned and their eyes met. “Her loss. Lots of women out there appreciate a man with a lot going on.”

Clark laughed self-consciously, a high nervous sound that made him even more self-conscious.

“I mean, looking at you now, all grown up, I kind of wish I hadn’t promised your mother I’d never sleep with you.”

Clark’s jaw dropped. “You what?”

Auntie Kim laughed, slapping the wheel. “Dang it, I also promised I wouldn’t tell you that.”

“You what?!” Clark asked. “Are you being serious right now?!”

She glanced at him, winking.

Clark’s mind raced with all the possibilities of why she might say such a thing, his heart pounding in his ears. Was it possible his mother really told Auntie Kim not to sleep with him, a clear indication that Auntie Kim actually did want to sleep with him? She was probably just kidding around, she always had a weird sense of humor, but what embarrassed a few short years ago, he suddenly found arousing. “Did you promise about this trip specifically?”

Auntie Kim laughed, “No, you were about eight or nine. You brought us cake, and you did this adorable thing where you bowed and kissed my hand.”

“I remember.”

“Do you really?”

“Yes, Milady.” He’s been obsessed with knights and chivalry when he was nine.

Auntie Kim laughed, and when she glanced at him, she seemed to be blushing. “Well, I said something about if you were ten years older, and your mother took me to task. ‘You’re his godmother for fuck’s sake!'” She imitated Clark’s mother, and it made him smile as always, “‘Just because you’ll do it with anybody, you’d take advantage of my poor innocent boy!'”

Clark swallowed slowly, “She… she thought you’d do that?”

“Right? Just because I sleep with a lot of people, it doesn’t mean I don’t have standards. It just happens that anyone I want, I get.”

“Well, except me,” Clark said, and she glanced at him with an eyebrow raised. “Since you promised my mom.”

“Right,” she agreed, laughing. “So tell me about school.”

Clark told her about school, the heavy classwork that came with a biochemical engineering degree and Auntie Kim seemed to be awake at the end, which was good because she was driving. She told him about her recent projects, like the consulting job for the hotel where they would be staying that evening. In one way, their conversation felt a little like a time machine, like the last two years hadn’t even happened, but in another, their relationship had a whole new dynamic. Now that Clark was an adult, one she found attractive judging by her glances, he felt more confident. He felt like she was interested in what he said and not just humoring him. Now that he was more mature, he was able to imagine with more realism that she would spend the evening seducing him. That would be great for when he was alone in his hotel room later, masturbating.

With the good conversation and the pleasure of looking at Auntie Kim, the day of driving flew by. Every time he made her laugh, he tucked the sound and image carefully into his memory, for later. He loved to make her laugh and smile, make her glance at him with her brow arched, and when she touched his arm or hand for any reason. It happened a lot over eight hours, but it never stopped thrilling him to feel her warmth on his skin.

Dusk was falling firmly into night when she pulled into the shining plaza of what had to be the fanciest hotel in the city. The sheltered driveway was around a huge, well-lit fountain surrounded by small but colorful garden plots. By the time Clark finished marveling at it, valets had opened the doors and ushered them out. One of them greet Kim by name, standing very close to her, and then spared a sneer for Clark as he rounded the front of the car.