Elizabeth 08: Generations

"I wasn't!" Margaret snapped. "Oh, I got the funny looks every time I undressed for the shower, but the first time someone commented on it - her name was Sarah - I thrashed her. Lost a week's off-grounds privileges for it, but it was well worth it. After that, no one ever harassed me about how I looked naked, thank you very much."

"But you never got over it, obviously," Elizabeth said.

"Mother! Of course I did!"

"No," Elizabeth insisted. "Clearly you don't even see that for yourself as yet." To me, she continued, "Perhaps she'd have been better off never knowing she and I had this in common. After all, who ever wants to be too much like her mother? But I was only trying to encourage all four kids to accept and love themselves earlier in life than I was able to do."

"Just because I don't wish to tear my clothes off in public like you..." Margaret's angry retort faded away to an awkward smile as she noticed one of the young men she'd been admiring chasing the wayward beach ball up the sand towards us. She hadn't noticed what I had seen while trying to stay out of the mother-daughter quarrel: the handsome young gent had made an awkward throw that was clearly intentional, to give him an excuse to come introduce himself to us. I wouldn't have been a bit surprised to learn the token woman in their group had suggested the whole thing in the first place.

Regardless of how incidental it all was, Margaret's demeanour swung around immediately as she sat up straighter in the beach chair and grinned at the man chasing after the ball. His balls and cock jostled about quite playfully as he ran, and I have no doubt Margaret made no effort to hide her fascination with the sight. "Lost your toy, did you?" she teased once he was close enough to hear.

"Afraid I did. Sorry to interrupt, ladies." He finally caught the ball and stood up to address us all, giving us a lovely view of his chiselled body, shock of sandy blond hair that had been tousled all about in the surf, virile tufts of the same all about his chest and arms, and of course the lovely young cock that was now growing stiff as he returned our gaze.

"That's perfectly all right," Elizabeth reassured him. "This is our first day here. What better way to meet the regulars?"

"Yes, well, I've only been a regular this season," the young man explained. "My cousins over there and I, we've been coming here for years with our parents, but it was only this year that I was finally brave enough to..." he grinned and looked down at his body, evidently noticing for the first time that he had an erection. "Sorry!" he said. "We're not supposed to let that happen here."

"Don't be sorry, young man, we're flattered!" I assured him. "Incidentally, I'm Agnes." I sat up and extended my hand, which he took.

"Danny," he said, following suit with Elizabeth and Margaret. "Pleased to meet you." To Margaret he added, "If you'd like to come join us, you're welcome to, you know."

"Dressed like this?" Margaret asked.

"Of course!" Danny said. "Like I said, I was you right up to this year. The others all went through it, too. They'll understand."

Margaret bit her lip and glanced across at myself and Elizabeth, then looked back at Danny. "I'd love to," she declared. "But first..." She stood up, and I saw the same look of determination on her face that I had always imagined on her mother's face on her first visit to the baths, well before I met her. With a knowing grin at Danny, she reached back and untied her dress, and slipped gracefully out of it. There was just enough time for us to take note of her panties betraying the secret of her big bush before she pulled them down, leaving absolutely no doubt that she was Elizabeth's daughter (I am quite certain Danny understood as much, though he made no comment). Once she had her brassiere off as well and had stowed all her clothes neatly in the beach bag between our chairs, there was but a moment to admire her beautiful body as she stood and took a deep breath. "Shall we go, then, Danny?" she asked.

"Of course," he said, making no effort to disguise his adoration. "If you need a minute or two to get comfortable, though..."

"It's going to take more than a minute," Margaret confessed. "But I suppose that's why it's best that I just throw myself into it all."

"That is the best way to do it, darling," Elizabeth advised. "You'll be amazed at how quickly you grow comfortable with it."

"I certainly was," Danny agreed, as he beckoned Margaret to come down to the water. With a look that appeared both nervous and overjoyed, she was off with him.

"Do you suppose we got through to her, or was it only him?" I asked.

"Probably only him," Elizabeth admitted. "But so what?"

"She's beautiful," I added.

"Indeed," Elizabeth agreed. "I only hope now she will see that."

It appeared that she did, for as Elizabeth and I lingered on our chairs, we watched as Margaret joined in on the fun and was soon laughing with the lot of them as if it were a perfectly chaste playground game.

"So she did get picked on, but she hit back," Elizabeth mused as we watched Margaret accompany her new friend down to the water, where she received a warm welcome. "I suppose I oughtn't condone it exactly..."

"Oh, of course you should," I said.

"Well, as long as there was no permanent damage," Elizabeth conceded with a smile.

What transpired that afternoon was the very opposite of permanent damage for Margaret. Although I have little doubt that her displayed confidence among her new friends was an act at first, it was soon clear to us both that she had embraced the freedom genuinely and utterly. Shrieks of joy - hers and others - wafted up to us now and again as they splashed about for hours in the surf.

Her mother, of course, knew all about feigning confidence at first and coming to know it for real; and she saw the same transformation I sensed. "I hoped it would be so," she said with a satisfied gaze upon the new friends. "And evidently it is."

"Did the change come that quickly for you?" I asked.

"No. But I wasn't as tough as she apparently is." And though she tried to give her daughter a stern look as she said it, I am certain I saw a glint of pride in her eyes.

Margaret's newfound friends and freedom meant Elizabeth and I had the afternoon to ourselves. Time and again I nearly divulged my news, but time and again I hadn't the heart to do so on such a lovely occasion. Elizabeth did not make that easy, for the talk was of future plans once the weather turned cold. "You do not want to go back to Westfordshire, you know," she advised me. "Even if it weren't turning ragged - and it is, in the worst way - you know you can't go home again. There are plenty of lovely houses in our neighbourhood, and you could set up a study in any spare bedroom you like and have all the room you could dream of!"

"Elizabeth," I said in a dreamy tone that was only partially feigned. "Don't let's dwell on what's next when we've got such a lovely present to enjoy."

"Learned that in the war, I take it?" Elizabeth asked.

"Among other settings, yes," I said. "Look, the war - the loss of Benjamin - that taught me to enjoy every nice moment this life gives us, that's true. But I would hope you needn't have quite such a harsh lesson to learn that!"

"Oh, I quite agree," Elizabeth said. "But - and this is something I have learned in the years since the war, mind you - one does need to be prepared."

"There is a time and a place for preparing, Elizabeth," I replied. Turning on my side to admire my friend's beautiful body without inhibition or apology, I added, "But I dare say that time and place is not on a nude beach with a dear friend!"

As I felt my vagina growing moist and I found myself longing to explore hers once again, I flashed a smile whose meaning Elizabeth could never fail to discern.

Of course she did not. "Agnes! My daughter is..."

"...Probably hoping you and I will go someplace to mind our own business in any event!" I finished.

With an exasperated yet titillated look at me, Elizabeth rubbed her thighs together and, I could see in her face, felt the same sensation I was now enjoying between mine. "My God, Agnes, I'm the worst mother on earth, aren't I?"

"Hardly," I countered. "You're Elizabeth. Sex is never far from the surface with you, is it?"

She smiled and looked out at the ocean, and then turned her longing gaze to my face and then my pussy. It looked as though she intended to stand up and take me out into the water, but after a tense pause she shook her head and lay back in her chair. "Heavens, Agnes, I certainly enjoyed your caresses before, but...I mean, you had my son's penis in there just yesterday!"

Elizabeth's observation being as true as it was absurd, we looked one another in the eye and burst into laughter. Though the moment did not quell my longing for just one more chance to run my fingers through her bush, it did make me accept that it was not going to happen. "Very well, then, Elizabeth, you're quite right," I said. "Nevertheless, I'm feeling terribly hot and bothered, and the water has all the privacy one needs here, I suppose." I stood up. "I'll be seeing you shortly?"

"Wait," Elizabeth said. With a resigned look, she stood up as well. "If you've got an urge you cannot ignore, imagine how desperate I'm feeling!"

"I confess I had suspected as much," I said as she took my hand and we meandered down to the water. "The hairy ones are still the horny ones, I presume?"

"That fire has never gone out," Elizabeth confessed. "I don't suppose it ever shall."

"Would you have it any other way?"

"Certainly not!" Elizabeth said. "It's who I am. I dearly hope Margaret finds the same in herself soon."

"I shan't be at all surprised if today is the turning point," I said.

To avoid any obvious impropriety, we let go of one another's hand and walked out into the surf until the waves were lapping at our breasts. After a cursory look back to determine that we had a modicum of privacy, I gazed out into the water, the rippling waves, the horizon and the wide world beyond that I now knew so well, and set about teasing my clitoris. I set my memory free to wander through my favourite encounters in Westfordshire City and the wild years afterward, but it was no use: as I massaged myself into a pleasant lather, I thought of Teddy. Sweet, innocent, earnest, better-than-he-gave-himself-credit-for Teddy, who was just about to make Katie such a spectacularly lucky girl with all I had taught him. All his mother had taught me. His mother, who was lost in her own beautiful memories just ten feet to my left.

I turned and looked at Elizabeth, and she smiled back at me in mutual disbelief. From behind, the world saw two middle aged women admiring the late afternoon sun over the water, if they noticed us at all. If only they knew!

Decades of intimate friendship meant we had no trouble discerning when we were both done and ready to return to the beach. There was no discussion on the subjects of our fantasies as we made our way back; I rather suspect Elizabeth did not wish to know if I had thought of Teddy. As for me, I also didn't care to know if she had focused on our old times together; I was already feeling melancholy about once again saying goodbye to all that, likely forever this time.

Despite all that, spirits were remarkably high when at last Margaret joined us and we retrieved our clothing for the drive home. "Danny's asked me to the club dance!" Margaret squealed as soon as we were safe in the confines of the ladies' changing house.

"Why, that's wonderful!" Elizabeth replied, though I suspected she was already grousing privately about the likely price of a new dress for the occasion. "But tell me, Margaret, how do you feel about your appearance now?"

"Oh, I still hate how you go on about these things, Mother, but...you were right," she finally confessed. "No one gave me a hard time, and I think...I think they found it fascinating, even. I caught them all looking at it one time or another, even Janet, the other girl."

"I wish I could tell you that was a fleeting experience," Elizabeth said. "But I'm afraid you've been blessed with a body that will always garner attention. I ought to know."

"I think I actually like it, now that I've tried putting myself out there," Margaret said.

"Like mother, like daughter," I couldn't resist saying.

Elizabeth looked at me as though she wished to disagree. But we both knew she had enjoyed the attention her huge bush had garnered for decades, and I am quite sure we were both immensely relieved that Margaret seemed well on the way to sharing that affinity.

Margaret did not wish her mother to know the true reaction Danny and his friends had had to her body, and I could not blame her for that. So it was only in me that she confided, later that evening upon finding me alone in my bedroom, that those stolen looks at her triangle had not been the whole story. "It was just before Danny asked me to the dance, actually. We were flirting like mad in the water with the others a bit away, and he asked could he tell me something really intimate, with apologies in advance if he offended me. Of course I knew what it was going to be about, but I was expecting some sort of insult."

"Since he asked you to the dance, I do not suppose he found your body repulsive," I offered.

"Quite the contrary!" Margaret stood up and twirled around, her bathrobe billowing flirtatiously. He said, 'You have the most beautiful bush I've ever seen. It's magnificent.' He called me magnificent, Auntie Agnes!"

"Well, you are, dear," I said. "I'm ever so happy you've found that within the way your mother did when she was your age."

"Oh, I'm afraid that's not all, Auntie Agnes," she continued. "He asked if he could touch it, just run his fingers through it once. 'I think we've all been hoping for that,' he said, even Janet. I said - please don't tell Mother, but I said yes, and when the others saw him touching me, well, they all wanted to as well. And once the ice was broken, they all wanted to tell me how beautiful it was and how lucky I was to be a bit different, and how sensuous it looked and felt!"

"I do hope no one made you feel uncomfortable," I said.

"Uncomfortable? I've never felt so beautiful! And Auntie Agnes?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry I've been such a frump up to now."

"I think you ought to tell your mother that, not me. But thank you."

"Oh, I will! I know just how I'm going to show her I'm sorry, too."

The dance was on Friday night. In the interim, Lillian also garnered an invitation from a lifeguard a year her senior. "I was certain Father would refuse," she admitted to Teddy and Katie as I helped the three of them with a sandcastle on the beach just after lunch. Jonathan and Elizabeth had yet to appear from the cottage, so Lillian was free to her revelation. Of course no one expected Margaret. "But he just asked for Ronald's last name and his parents' telephone number, and when I gave it to him he said yes. The only problem is I've got to wear one of Margaret's castoff dresses, but Ronald won't know that's what it is."

"Father is probably on the phone to him now, scaring the daylights out of him," Teddy joked.

"He's not like that, and you know it, Teddy!" Lillian told him. To me she added, "Auntie Agnes, you know my parents better than anyone. They're not mistrustful like that, are they?"

"Not at all, Lillian," I reassured her. "And Teddy knows it, too." I couldn't resist the comment, and I was rewarded with his first look at me all day and a knowing grin.

I was still fairly eating my heart out over him, but of course I knew he belonged with someone his own age. And Katie had been fairly glowing since his apology. At that moment she piped up, "Lillian, I haven't got a new dress for tonight either, but I am quite sure my date will like what he sees!"

"Of course he will," Teddy said with a smirk. "How could he ever not?"

"Good answer!" Katie and I said in unison. We exchanged a bemused look, and to my surprise I felt no jealousy of the dear girl. If anything, I rather suspected Teddy had overestimated her prowess.

A shadow appeared over the sandcastle, and I looked up expecting to see Elizabeth or Jonathan. Instead, I was greeted with the sight of Margaret standing proudly in her bathing suit, just as unabashed at the poorly kept secret between her thighs as her mother always was.

"Can I join you?" she asked us.

"Uh...yeah, of course!" Teddy said, clearly less than comfortable with the sight but knowing better than to say a word against it. With the ice broken, Lillian and Katie also offered their welcome while I nodded and smiled my approval.

"Lovely!" Margaret declared, and she plopped down between Lillian and me.

"I'm glad you found your bathing suit," Lillian said in a tone too sweet by half.

"So am I!" Margaret was not taking her sister's bait. "It's much too nice out here to be hiding in dowdy old clothes, isn't it?"

"I agree completely," Katie said. "And you look lovely in your suit."

"Thank you!" Margaret was nearly glowing, and neither she nor I could resist a look at Teddy to see how he felt about his date's approval. To my surprise, he looked perfectly content with it all.

Elizabeth and Jonathan arrived minutes later with Catherine in tow (I believe it had been her turn to help with the lunch dishes), and I could see they were just as surprised as I at Margaret's appearance. Lillian, from the look of it, was dying to complain to her parents about the nasty precedent Mother had set that Margaret was now following, but the threat of not being allowed to the dance kept her tongue in check.

"What a lovely sandcastle," Jonathan said. "Agnes, I recall the first few years we came up here, Elizabeth and I would build the castles and their only concern was knocking them down!"

"Mine too," Katie admitted. "I remember that all too well."

"The tide's coming in," Margaret noted. "Shall we knock this one down for old times' sake? Otherwise the water will!"

"I say let the water get at it," Teddy declared. "Who's up for a round of Clutch?"

A chorus of "I am!"s followed; Clutch was a game they had invented involving trying to clutch a beach ball under the water while the others tried to loosen one's grip and bring it to the surface. The rules were never clear to me, but all the kids loved it. All, that is, except Margaret, who of course had never joined them in the water before that day. Now, though, she stood up and said, "I'd love to join if you can teach me the rules."

"Of course we will!" Katie declared.

With that, they were all off to the water. But not before Margaret gave her mother a knowing smile and a hug. "Thank you for setting such a great example," she said.

"Quite a turnaround," Jonathan noted once they were all off into the waves. "Was it that sudden for you, Elizabeth?"

"No," Elizabeth admitted. "But I didn't have a nude beach at my disposal."

"Nor a mother who cared so much," I noted.

The three of us set off on a long walk down the beach, and it did occur to me that now was as good a time as any to divulge my news. But the talk was of the dance that evening and how excited all the kids were - except Catherine, who of course considered herself far above such things now - and once again I did not wish to spoil the festive mood.

"Do you remember your first dance, Agnes?" Jonathan asked me at one point.

"I certainly do," I said. "A village church social. With Edward, of course."

"Oh, dear," Elizabeth said.

"Oh, no, he was a wonderful dancer!" I said. "Gliding about in his arms, I think that may well have been the first night I was willing to go to his bed. But I was too shy to say so. Imagine the trouble I could have saved if I had spoken!"