As I passed Brenda’s car, I dropped the bag with the strap-on still in it into the car's boot. It was not needed anymore, and there was the safest place to store it.

I walked past Mum’s car, which was in the drive. That was unusual as this was about the time she normally picked up my younger brothers from school.

“Hi Mum, I'm home,” I called out as I stepped in the front door. There was no reply, so I scampered up the stairs and used the bathroom to check my makeup.

My sister was in our bedroom, reading. “Mum wants a word with you in private,” she announced as I walked in.

“How do you know?”

“She wants to take you out for a meal, as you missed the family one we had yesterday.”

“That sounds strange,” I remarked, then added. “It has never happened before.” I looked at my sister closely.

Ella shrugged. “I don’t know any more than that!”

If that were true, it would be a first. She was always earwigging.

“Has Jon phoned?”

“Not yet… but he will.” She grinned.

I smiled, too, as I was pleased my sister had that amount of confidence. I never did.

It was with some caution that I went to investigate what my mother had in store for me, and I found her lurking in the kitchen. She smiled when she saw me, and I weakly smiled back. There was some trepidation; there had to be some motive behind the sudden urge to take me out for this missed meal.

“Get your glad rags on; we're going out,” she said and then cupped both her ears. Her eyes moved upwards until they rested on the ceiling. It was clear she knew if we stayed where we were, Ella would be listening.

I nipped back to the bedroom. I found a short black skirt and a blue blouse, then changed in the bathroom like I always did.

Back in the bedroom, I quickly touched up my makeup, my sister now full of questions. None of which I knew the answer to other than we thought it might be something to about college.

It was Ella’s suggestion, “Maybe she is making sure that you don’t drop out… again.”

“Maybe,” I said; I didn’t want to take my sister's rise. “Are you sure you did not say anything to Mum about me?” I then asked as I reached the bedroom door.

She told me that she hadn’t, and I believed her. My sister had been asking way too many questions for her to know what was going on.

Mum was waiting for me in her coat, but I noticed she had put a bit more makeup on, and her legs were now in pantyhose or maybe stockings. Though, I strongly doubted it was the latter.

“Are we going somewhere nice?” I apprehensively asked. This felt strange, and I wasn’t sure I liked it, especially as I knew I was carrying too many secrets.

“Clare, it's a surprise. So, don’t look so worried. With you going back to college, I thought this was a good moment for us to have a little Mother-daughter time. Our cab should be here shortly.”

“A taxi?”

“Yes, I want to have some wine with you when we eat our meal.”

“But you normally only drink tea!” I exclaimed, though it was true to say that on Saturday night the tea must have been full of alcoholic milk. It was a thought that put a smile on my face.

“That’s better,” my Mum remarked on seeing my smile.

“You could have just taken me shopping,” I hopefully suggested.

Mum smiled and then reminded me that I was now too old for her to buy my clothes.

When the taxi arrived, it headed into the city, though I had no idea where it was going. It wasn’t until it turned into the gay quarter and headed up the street Rainbows was on that I got that sinking feeling. It seemed my Mum thought it was a good idea to eat there!

“You know this is a gay bar, not a restaurant.”

“They serve food, and as you now tell me, you are gay. I thought you would like the place,” my mother remarked with a huge grin. She then got out of the cab and paid the driver.

I stood there on the pavement, transfixed, even horrified. This was the last place I wanted to eat a meal with my mother. Her arm interlocked mine, and she walked me inside Rainbow’s. It gave me the feeling she was a woman on a mission.

However, as we stepped inside, I just hoped we wouldn’t meet any of those twenty-five ladies whom I had managed to get their telephone numbers last Friday. Explaining that to my Mum would be embarrassing in the extreme.

“Right, Clare, where do you normally sit?”

“Mum… I have only been here once before.” It was half true, apart from a quick recce. I had been there twice.

Thankfully, it was early Monday evening, and the bar was almost empty, just a few early work leavers from the city.

“We sit over there then.”

Mum had picked a table near the front window. I made sure my back was to the street.

In silence, we made our orders, which included a bottle of white wine, though I did not feel like drinking. I planned to stick to the water.

“What is this all about, Mum?”

“I thought it was time we had a little mother-daughter chat before it was too late. You are getting older; soon, you will be gone.”

I stared at my Mum. Was she kicking me out?

“I mean, so many of your friends are getting married; it made me realise it won’t be long before you leave home.”

“What! … You are going to torture me with embarrassment?”

Mum laughed. Then softly declared, “Actually, I think it's going to be more the other way around; that is why there are no cups of tea.”

“Clare, you can call me Ruth, while we are here, if that helps. Isn’t that the modern thing?”

“No, Mum. What has got into you?” Other than Dad, I wickedly thought. I then quickly added, “This is going to be torture by embarrassment!”

My Mum glared at me just as the wine came. She went straight for it.

It was just to be polite that I poured a small amount into my wine glass and filled the other glass with tap water.

“So why are we here, Mum?” I was not going to call her Ruth.

“Look, Clare, this is not easy, but I feel I need to have a chat with you… You’re an adult now.”

“Is this about Saturday?”

“If it is, I don’t need to know. Some things are best left unsaid, and I promise you I'm not going to mention anything to Ella or Dad. That is Guide's honour.” I made the Guide's sign with my middle three fingers. It seemed to relax Mum as she laughed.

“You were only in Guides a month before you got kicked out.”

“Two months… and how could I know superglue worked so well with fingers?”

Mum smiled.

“Well, if you want to talk about this being embarrassing, that certainly was. If you remember, it was me who had to take Brown Owl to the hospital to get her hand removed from that swimming cup. I could not stop apologising to her!”

“I know it wasn’t my finest hour… Sorry,” I replied as we both smiled, which only widened as we remembered the moment.

“You were never the easy child, Clare, but I guess it is all part of growing up, and that brings us back to the reason we are here.”

Mum took a big gulp of her wine and then sipped it. She was thinking.

“Let’s start with Saturday.”

“Mummm… I don’t want to know.” I really didn’t.

“You are not an ostrich, Clare. You need to be aware, so stop burying your head into the sand.”

Her comment brought on that image, and I couldn’t help but nervously giggle. I reached for my wine as Mum finished hers while giving me an odd look.

The server came past and topped up both our wine glasses.

With our meal not far away, I peered into my glass of wine and muttered, “I just assumed you were both swingers.”

“Clare, we were just having a little fun. I wouldn’t necessarily call it swinging.”

I felt my Mum’s eye staring at me as I looked into my glass of wine.

“You need to remember I am a mother first, and a wife second, but that doesn’t make me feel any less of a woman. Sometimes I feel that I missed growing up. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that your arrival was a little unexpected.”

“Motheerrr!”

“Clare, this is important, and please don’t feel any less of me. But you have to remember I went from a teenage giggling schoolgirl to being a mother almost overnight. Somehow, I missed my teenage years.”

“But the important thing is you have always been loved by Dad and me, and we never regretted having you.”

Mum sipped her wine while I just sat there looking into my glass. I didn’t know what to say. Today had started so brightly, but first Jaz, and now this… However, I guess in my heart I had always known what Mum had just told me.

“Mum, are these things I needed to know?”

“I mean, shouldn’t they be kept secret?”

“Clare, I am just trying to justify what you accidentally saw. I enjoy a bit of male attention, and that is what you saw. Me making sure I kept Dad interested in me.”

“Mum! I don’t need… Argh! … I don’t want to know; let’s just keep it our secret.”

I paused, thinking.

“So, are you not swingers?” I suddenly realised I needed to make sure I had understood correctly.

Mum finished her wine, and then slowly said, “No, not in the sense of the word… But we do occasionally attend themed adult parties. That is what we did on Saturday. But I was with your father, and we enjoyed ourselves…”

“What I am trying to say is… That, I guess, I am making up for my missed youth.”

This was cringe-worthy. I didn’t want to hear about my mother’s sex life. Parents don’t have sex lives, and if they did, it should only be behind closed doors. Out of sight, out of mind; everyone knew that!

But I also knew I was a grown-up and though my mind wrestled with this new reality, at the same time, I knew I could accept it. I did understand that Mum wanted to get this off her chest and she was now treating me like an adult.

Then it occurred to me, though I hadn’t been to one. Brenda held similar adult-themed parties. Not last Saturday night, but I had to make sure I wouldn’t run into my parents at one… that would be awkward in the extreme.

“Are these parties local?” I carefully asked. I tried not to show my anxiety.

My mother unexpectedly laughed. She seemed relieved that she had told me, and maybe that I had listened or not made a scene.

“You are not thinking of going to one?”

“No!” I exclaimed. Maybe a little too quickly, which was especially true, as I knew I would be attending Brenda’s next party.

“I just was wondering if you ever ran into people we may know.”

Mum went quiet and finished her wine. Then studied me carefully. Did she know?

“No, Clare. Not local. They are run by an ex-army colleague of dads.”

I felt more at ease. At least Mum and Dad were unlikely to be turning up at Brenda’s Xmas adult party. But with the same thought, I realised that it sounded like she had been going to these parties for some years.

I didn’t want to know anymore. Instead, I put my energy into finishing my wine.

Our meals arrived, and surprisingly, Mum ordered another bottle of white wine, the first one seemingly to have already gone. Our conversations went on to more mundane topics. But the most important question was niggling me… it had been left unsaid.

I started playing with my food. I was not hungry… I needed to know.

Yet, I didn’t want to know.

“What is it?” Mum asked.

“I know some things are best left as a secret,” I carefully said.

“But is Dad, Dad?” I then tentatively asked.

I was hoping, if he wasn’t, Mum would have the courage to lie to me. Not only that, but I remembered what Ella had said about Mum. It was that she had a reputation when she left school. The remark had been based on a catty remark made by the mother of a friend of my sister's. They had been in the same year at school.

Mum stared at me.

“Of course, he is your father. I never went with any other men when I was a teenager.”

I grinned, relieved.

However, I was fairly certain that she had, at least in part, lied. It also hadn’t been lost on me that it also implied that she had slept with other men since she had been with Dad.

But I didn’t care; Mum had given me the answer I was looking for.

“Thank you, Mum,” I somewhat elatedly said.

“And Clare, what about you?”

“What about me?” I questioned, trying not to blush.

Mum knew I wasn’t a virgin and hadn’t been for a long time. She had made sure I went on the contraceptive pill. But we had never discussed my sex life, and I didn’t plan to start doing that now. But I thought I needed to give something back, as Mum had given me the right answer to the one question that had always haunted me.

“You know I have been in relationships.” There was no way I was going to tell Mum about my number, or anything more than she already knew.

The new bottle of wine arrived, and I quickly topped both our glasses up. My water was now all but forgotten.

“Look, mum, I am happy. I have plenty of friends and a new direction in life.”

“You mean because you are going out with a girl?”

I blushed.

“Actually, it is two girls.”

It was as good a time as ever to mention Brenda. After all, the anklet with her name was still around my ankle. I had been waiting for Mum to say something.

As we ate, I told Mum about Karen. I tried to explain to her that she had never been in a relationship before and wasn’t yet out as a lesbian like I was. Mum scoffed when I said that, but I pushed on, trying to get it all out there in one go.

By the time I had finished, our food was eaten, and most of the wine had gone.

“So,” my Mum said. “This lady on the hill is almost my age?”

I smiled and answered yes. I hadn’t told my mother the truth about Brenda’s age, the fact that he was at least ten years older than her.

It wasn’t helped by the fact that my Mum looked young. She was thirty-five but looked in her mid to late twenties. Though, I had never told her that!

“And she is wealthy?”

“Yes, Mum.”

“And you are friends?”

“Yes, Mum.”

“She is a lesbian?”

“And you are sleeping with her?”

“Yes, Mum… but it is not serious, it is more experimentation… and she lent me her car.”

“Are you insured?”

“Yes, Mum.”

“I don’t think I want to know any more. It is embarrassing you are going out with a woman in her thirties, as she is too old… It is bad enough that you are corrupting Karen, though I can accept that!”

“I am not corrupting Karen. She wants to go out with me!”

“What happened with David? I saw the way he looked at you?”

“David is with Sarah, Mum. You know that, but he is a good friend.”

I couldn’t tell Mum the truth, as I was protecting Sarah. It also wasn’t the correct time to bring our current true relationship into the open. My personal life was complicated enough as it was. The last thing I needed was my mother encouraging me to be with David. My heart sensed that our time would come.

With our wine gone and the bill on its way, Mum announced that she needed the loo.

I wanted to say, use stall four. It was well known in the lesbian community that was where you took another girl to make out. It was where I ended up on Friday night.

But instead, I said. “Make sure you come back. I'm not washing the dishes as I have not got enough money to pay for the meal.”

Mum chuckled and then asked me where the rear entrance was before turning and walking in the direction of the toilets. As she walked away, I watched her. It was obvious to me that she had been drinking, not drunk, but maybe a little merry.

As she walked for the first time in my life, I checked her out. Not in a sexual way, but more with the thought that I now realised there was more to Mum than I could have ever thought. Like the fact that she had a sex life. Well, I guess I knew that… It was more the fact that her sex life might be a lot closer to my own than I could ever have suspected.

Then there were her looks. There was no doubt she was attractive. David had told me just that before I nudged him. Alright, I might not have the blonde hair, but I wondered if I would look as good as Mum when I reached my mid-thirties.

I noticed that ladies were looking at her, and I sensed my mother knew it too. She seemed to put an extra wiggle into her walk.

There was something else; Mum was drinking wine, wearing a short black skirt and a colourful blouse. It was so different to when she was at home. There it was, tea, jeans and being a mother. With me, here she was being perhaps more herself, a middle-aged sexy woman. It made me start to re-evaluate whether she was wearing pantyhose or stockings.

I sat there, just enjoying what was left of the wine and realising that though our conversation had started somewhat embarrassingly, it had been one we needed to have. She was treating me as an adult and at the same time telling me that I was one. It made me wonder that if I had not seen Mum in the kitchen Saturday night, whether we would have had this chat at all.

The bill arrived at our table and, along with it, two mints. I decided to eat them both, as Mum would never know.

After ten minutes, I wondered where she was. Didn’t she know she had a bill to pay?

Then I wondered if she was throwing up in the bathroom, but I couldn’t leave the table until the bill was paid. Or could I?

It was a minute or two later that I saw Mum. She was being chatted up by a blonde-haired lady who had her back to me. It was only then that she turned and faced me; it was Hazel!

I ducked down in my seat, my face glowing red. She was the last person I wanted to see tonight. I just hoped if she walked over that, nothing would be mentioned about me collecting telephone numbers, BDSM, or the fact she had fingered me on the dance floor.

Luckily, Hazel went to the bar and didn’t see me. I had never been so relieved.

“I think I just pulled,” Mum chuckled as she sat back at the table and looked at the bill.

Her face seemed a little flushed.

“No mints!” she then exclaimed.

I sat there feeling guilty, and wondering if I needed to explain about the mints and Hazel. But I wisely stayed quiet and let Mum have her moment.

Later, we walked to the taxi rank arm in arm. We were talking about everyday life, those small things that don’t seem so important at the time, but mean a lot. In Mum’s case, it had been the mints, but for me, it was a moment like this. Mum had four children, but tonight she just had one, and I needed that!

Later, when I was getting into bed, Ella started asking questions, one after another.

But I was staying mum.

All I told her was we went for a meal and had a glass of wine.

“All Mum did was narrate to me about how I had to do better at college this year. We hardly talked about anything else.”

It seemed to pacify Ella.

But the truth was, talking about college was about the only thing we hadn’t spoken about. Tonight had been about something much more important.

Tonight had been about mother-daughter bonding, and with that came a mutual understanding. What had been said this evening was not going to be told to Ella, Dad, David, Brenda, Karen, or any other member of my family; it was our secret.

We had both agreed… to stay mum.

Authors Note:- All characters engaged in sexual acts are 18+  ©2024 wxt55uk. This story may not be reproduced in any manner, without the express permission of the author.