"I'll be in early, Mother, and help tomorrow. You'll be all right this evening, won't you?" Sure she will, Tamera thought. Nothing the matter with her except neglect. That's why all the aches and pains; she's looking for sympathy and interest – why, the doctor as much told me that when I saw him last. Neglect and disuse, that's all the matter with her, neglect of mind and body. Why couldn't she break down her old-fashioned ways and be the real woman that she is underneath those imaginary black ankle-length skirts and whale-bone corsets…

"Oh, I realize I'm only being a selfish old lady," Carla said, smiling. "It's your time to be out and find your man. I've had my love, now better luck with yours."

"You haven't finished loving, Mother," Tamera said sharply. "You're only thirty-five, and a beautiful thirty-five at that!"

"I know. I have you, dearest child."

"That's not what I meant! I – Ohhh, what's the use." Tamera turned and started across the room. "I have to get dressed now, Mom."

Carla looked at her beautiful offspring tenderly as the almost naked Tamera padded barefoot into the hallway. She was slightly disturbed at her child, because Tamera had almost spoken – and was no doubt thinking – what she herself hadn't dared to think at her young age. But she couldn't stay mad or upset for long, and she felt herself warming with love and affection at the radiant, tanned body, the cornsilk hair fanning out behind her head, the way her conical young breasts beat with the rhythm of her heart, solid and not as large as her own, but then not fully developed, either. And Carla had to admire with pride her daughter's smooth flat belly and cute navel and the gentle sloping to her thighs, where she knew there was a down of softly curling pubic hair slightly thinner than her own – at the moment covered by merely a wisp of sheer nylon – and the pink petals of her still untouched young vagina. Her tight, almost boyish buttocks swayed gently as she walked toward her bedroom, and her feet, small, with delicate toes…