Rita Loud came through the door connecting the garage to the kitchen, went to the sink, and turned on the faucet. She squirted dish soap into her hands, rubbed them together...and froze when she saw Lynn Jr. standing dejectedly in the backyard, her right foot propped on a soccer ball. Her head was hung and her shoulders were slumped. Rita's eyes squinted and she leaned forward. What's wrong, honey, sad because Lincoln isn't here to put his dick in your mouth?

Lynn sighed and kicked the ball: It went airborne and soared toward the stockade fence separating their yard from Mr. Grouse's. It hit and bounced back: Lynn dove to the side and hit it with her head.

Watching her daughter, Rita glowered. She didn't tell Lynn she couldn't play sports period, but look at her, flagrantly doing it right in front of her face. Look at me, Mom. Fuck you. Lincoln's mine.

Shaking her head, Rita washed her hands, dried them on a dish towel, and turned the faucet off. She went to a drawer, pulled it out, and selected a steak knife with a black handle. Holding it flat against her outer thigh, she went to the back door, opened it, and stepped onto the patio. "Lynn?"

Lynn jerked and looked at her with big, fearful eyes, the ball tucked under her arm like the baby she probably hoped to have with her brother.

"Your father needs you out front."

"Okay," Lynn said. She dropped the ball and disappeared around the side of the house. When she was gone, Rita went to the ball, knelt, and lifted the knife, her teeth bared and her eyes hard. She brought it down, and it sank into the ball. She pulled it back and arched the knife down again. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. When it was flat and deflated, like her husband's penis, she stood, glared down at it, and went inside, where she dropped the knife into the sink. She went to her phone, which was sitting on the counter next to the fridge, and picked it up.

Lincoln hadn't texted her back.

She sighed. Where was he? What was he doing? It didn't occur to her until after he left that he was probably going to be with that Santiago girl. She struck Rita as the kind of little girl who liked doing dirty things with boys. An image flashed across her mind: Lincoln sitting on Ronnie Anne's bed, his head thrown back and his eyelids fluttering as Ronnie Anne stroked his dick. The image made Rita shake with rage. She went to her contacts, found Lincoln's number, and tapped it. She put the phone to her ear and waited five rings, six, seven. She was about to lose her temper when he finally answered. "Hey, Mom."

"I want you to come home. Lunch is almost ready."

"It's not even eleven..."

He sounded out of breath, like he was just thrusting into a little Hispanic slut.

"I want you home now," she said sharply.

Lincoln sighed. "Alright. Be there soon."

"I love you, honey."

"I love you too, Mom."

She hung up and sat her phone on the counter just as Lynn Sr. came into the kitchen. Ah, just the loser she wanted to see. She put on her biggest, sunniest smile. "Honey, can you run to the store for me? We're out of bread and milk."

Lynn's cocked his head. "We just bought some the other day."

"I know," Rita sighed sadly, "but Lola spilled the milk and I don't have enough bread for lunch. I thought I did."

"Alright," Lynn said, "I'll go now."

He started to turn, but she grabbed his arm. "I love you," she said, and kissed him. He stiffened against the brush of her lips, then kissed her back. "I love you too, honey."

As Lynn grabbed the keys and went into the garage, Rita leaned against the counter and crossed her arms, a satisfied smile touching her pink lips.

In the backyard, Lynn Jr. stood over her ball, her hands balled into fists and her teeth grinding together. Her mother did this. She sent Lynn to her father under false pretenses (he didn't need her, and looked confused when she told him Mom sent her), and then murdered her ball.

She glanced angrily over her shoulder. Her father's words from the night before came back to her. Just...be patient with her. She doesn't mean it.

There was something wrong with her mother, she knew that.

But, with a shiver, she wondered: What's next?

In her room, Luna Loud watched as her mother knelt over Lynn's soccer ball and stabbed it three, four, five times. Her heart raced and her stomach twisted. When Luan spoke at her elbow, she jumped. "What's she doing?"

"Stabbing Lynn's ball."

They looked at each other, Luan's dark eyes pooling with concern. "W-Why?" she asked.

Luna swallowed. "I don't know," she said, and turned back to the window. Their mother stood over the deflated ball, her shoulders lifting and falling. She spun and went into the house. Luna knew Mom was mad at Lynn for something that didn't matter (she didn't know what, but Mom was in one of her moods, and if you so much as sneezed wrong she would snap at you), but...attacking her ball like that? Maybe there was an explanation somewhere somehow, but watching it, Luna felt dread deep in the pit of her stomach because it looked...well...it looked crazy.

Every couple months, Mom got into moods where she was a real bitch...but only to the girls. She doted on Lincoln. It was actually kind of...kind of gross. It had been that way since Lincoln was born. Sometimes she was just extra cranky for a week, other times she was totally unreasonable. One time Luna found the neck of her guitar broken and lying on her bed; Mom never even complained about the noise.

Come to think of it, that was the day she played a bunch of her material for Lincoln, him sitting on her bed and her standing. Three times Mom came in, looking annoyed. "I'm sure Lincoln has things to do, Luna. You can't keep him hostage all day."

Each time Lincoln said he was enjoying himself.

Luna wondered if her mother did it out of jealousy.

"Should we tell Dad?" Luan asked.

Luna sat heavily on the edge of her bed and ran her fingers through her short, brown hair. "Man, I don't know." What could Dad do? Start a fight with her? When she was like this, fighting with her was useless. Over the years they had many roof-raisers that always ended with Mom mad and everyone miserable because the tension was so thick it was suffocating.

"It'll just make things worse," Luan said as she sat on her bed.

"Probably," Luna sighed. The best thing to do was ride it out. In a couple days to a week, Mom would be back to her old self and life would go on as it always had. Until the next time, of course, then they would do the whole song and dance over again.

"Don't tell Lynn," Luna said.

"I won't."

In her room, Lori held her phone in her hand. On the screen was a picture of the pregnancy test and the words: "I'm pregnant."

In her eight month relationship with Bobby, Lori had sent him literally a million texts, and never had one been as hard to send as this one. Telling him somehow made it real; if she didn't, maybe the life growing inside of her would wait.

Only it didn't work that way, and she knew that. Nature waited for no one.

How did this happen? she asked herself for the millionth time. She and Bobby were always safe: He wore condoms and also pulled out more often than not.

God, what was she going to do? She didn't want to start having kids early like her mother. She wanted to go to college first, and build a career.

How would her parents react?

How would her mother react? She couldn't tell them now. Her mother was in the middle of one of her PMS bitch fits; she would literally rip her head off.

She drew a heavy sigh and hovered her finger over the SEND button.

She was more scared than she had ever been in her life.

She pressed it.

Lynn Loud Sr. backed into the street and pressed his foot on the gas. He thought back to Rita in the kitchen. Maybe she was snapping out of it. God, he hoped so. He wanted his beautiful, caring wife back; that hateful shrew who replaced her every three months could go to hell and stay.

At the end of the street, he came to a rolling stop and turned left at the stop sign. Houses with wide front lawns flanked the sidewalks. A group of teenagers made their way west, probably toward the park, while on the other side of the street an old man with a cane ambled in the direction Lynn was going. He was wearing a tan windbreaker and a blue baseball cap. Lynn craned his neck. Was it a veteran's cap? His grandfather had one of those: He served in the Navy during World War II and the Korean War. He was at Pearl Harbor the day it was attacked in 1941 and present during the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. When he was small, Lynn loved listening to him talk about the war.

Ahead, heavy cross traffic moved along Central Street. The light went from green to red and he pressed the brake pedal.

It went all the way to the floor and the van didn't stop.

Lynn's stomach lurched.

The brakes were out.

He panicked as he rolled into the intersection. He jerked the wheel to the left...

...and a pick-up truck slammed into him. Metal crunched. Glass shattered. Lynn cried out as the door crumbled in on him, then lost consciousness. His last thought before blacking out was this: She cut my brake lines...

Lincoln Loud arrived home fifteen minutes after leaving the park. He was bitterly disappointed that he didn't get to spend more time with Ronnie Anne, and he had the feeling she was kind of disappointed too; when he told her he had to go, she said, "Oh," and looked down at her shoes.

Why did his Mom have to be like this? Why did she have to be so weird sometimes?

Angry, he walked his bike into the garage and propped it against the wall under a massive pegboard laden with handtools. The van wasn't here, but that wasn't surprising. Lori was probably at the mall again. Where she did she get the money to always go to the mall anyway? She didn't have a job and all she ever did was text Bobby and eat. Lincoln was surprised she wasn't five hundred pounds by this point.

When he walked through the door into the kitchen, he found Leni drawing a glass of water at the sink. She turned to him, and a smile crossed her face. "Hi, Lincy!"

"Hi," he said. He was going to ask where Mom was, but she burst into the kitchen, her lips arranged in a smile.

"You're home!"

"Uh, yeah, I'm home."

"I missed you." She came into the kitchen, and before he could move or flee, she swept him into a hug and squeezed him so tight she nearly broke his spine. His face sank into her ample bosom, her smell filling his nostrils; he tried to pull away but she held him tighter, crushing him. "Did you have fun at the park?"

She released him, and he stumbled back, sucking air into his lungs. "I was having fun," he said.

"That's nice," she smiled, putting her hand on his face. Behind her, Leni's brow crinkled with confusion. She took her glass and left, Lincoln silently begging her not to go.

"There's a movie on the Hallmark Channel I'm watching," Mom said, throwing her arm around his shoulder and all but dragging him into the living room, "I think you'll like it."

"What about lunch?" he asked defiantly. She said it was almost ready.

She waved her hand. "We just ate, Lincoln. You can have lunch later."

"But..."

She sat him on the couch and sidled next to him, putting her arm around his shoulder and taking his hand in hers. Okay, this was getting reaaaally weird. He pulled his hand away and tried to stand, but she grabbed him by the back of his shirt and yanked down. "Lincoln, stop that."

"Mom, you're making me uncomfortable."

She audibly gasped, and when Lincoln looked at her, her eyes were filled with misery, and he instantly regretted saying that. "I'm sorry," he said quickly.

"I just want to spend time with you," she said in a wounded tone.

"I'm sorry," Lincoln said again, feeling terrible. "I just..." he reached out to her, but she pulled away, her eyes as cold as ice.

Turning to the TV, she said, "If you don't love me, you can go."

Lincoln's heart clutched. "No! I do love you, I just..."

"It's fine, Lincoln," she said sharply and crossed her legs. "Go play with your sisters or something."

Cold horror filled his stomach. His mother got on his nerves when she was like this, but he didn't hate her, and the thought of her thinking he did made him sick. "Please, Mom, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it."

"It sounded like you meant it," she said, still staring straight ahead. She crossed her arms with a flourish, and Lincoln bowed his head, feeling utterly miserable. He should have known better than to say that. What kind of inconsiderate monster was he? This was his mother! Yeah, it was true, she was making him uncomfortable, but she wasn't entirely herself. He knew that, yet he said something hurtful.

Hot, stinging tears filled his eyes, and he drew a deep breath.

"You can go, Lincoln."

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice breaking. He bowed his head and sniffed. He started to get up, but his mother laid her hand on his leg and he looked up. Her eyes, so recently hard, were soft now. "I'm really sorry, Mom."

She took a deep breath. "It's okay, Lincoln." She smiled weakly at him. "I know you didn't mean it." She opened her arms, and he hugged her, resting his head against her breast and listening to her heartbeat the way he did when he was little. It was a steady, calming sound; as it filled his ear, he thought that it wasn't so bad being his mother's pet every now and then, even if it did kind of interfere with his life.

He snuggled close to her and she put his arm around him. "What are we watching?" he asked.

"It's called A Queen and her Maid, and it's about a man who's in love with the queen and her servant. It's very romantic." She flicked his cowlick.

Fighting down his discomfort, Lincoln tried to lose himself in the movie, but his mother kept touching him: His hair, his face, his arm. At one point, she leaned over and slipped her hand down the front of his shirt; he jumped as her warm fingers brushed his bare chest. She laughed. "Calm down, honey." She rubbed him slowly, then gently raked her nails across his flesh. He was frozen, powerless as she found his nipple and grazed it with her middle finger. What was she doing? This wasn't right...

He stared straight ahead, a dark mixture of emotions swirling in his stomach. Mom leaned in and kissed him on the top of the head...then the side...then she kissed his earlobe; her breath was hot, and a shudder went through him. "I love you, Lincoln," she panted. She kissed his neck, her lips soft and moist.

Lincoln's heart pounded and his stomach clenched. He felt a stirring in his pants, and shame washed over him. He pulled away. "I-I have to use the bathroom," he said. He went to stand up, but his mother grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him into her lap. "In a minute," she said, and kissed his cheek. He went stiff in her arms as she trailed kisses across his face to the corner of his mouth. He squeezed his eyes closed and willed it all to stop, for her to release him. Instead, he felt her tongue tracing his bottom lip. An involuntary cry escaped his lips, and he pulled away.

"Lincoln..."

"I-I-I have to go."

Before she could protest, he fled, and didn't notice Lynn on the stairs until he almost collided with her. She was sitting with her face pressed against two spindles, her eyes wide. Like a woman coming out of a daze, she turned to him. "Linc, are you...?"

He pushed past her, tears welling in his eyes, and pounded up the rest of the steps, ducking into his room and slamming the door.

For a moment, Lynn sat where she was, her head spinning. She didn't know whether to continue watching her mother or go after her brother and try to comfort him: She saw everything, and she couldn't decide whether she was angry, disgusted, horrified, or scared. Lynn wasn't a mother, but she knew there were certain things mothers didn't do with their sons: What her mother was doing with Lincoln was one of those things.

Her stomach quivered and she felt like she was going to be sick. She got up and hurried up the stairs, flying into her room and slamming the door. She needed time to process what she had seen, and decide what she would do about it.

In the living room, Rita drew a heavy breath and crossed her legs. She was so wet that she had leaked through the crotch of her pants. Heat radiated from between her legs, and her erect nipples poked painfully against the fabric of her bra. Lincoln had no idea what he did to her. Oh, but he would. Tonight she would show him: She would take off her clothes for him and let him touch her there...let him feel the burning love that leaked endlessly from her...and let him fill her with his own.

She crossed her legs and took a deep, shuddery breath. Did she have time to do it now? She could go into his room, lock his door, and mount him; it wouldn't take her long to cum.

As if in answer, her phone rang. Damn it, Lynn; even in death you're a fucking cockblock. She picked it up. "Hello?"

"Rita Loud?" an official sounding voice asked.

"Yes?" She tried to imbue the question with just a touch of concern.

"This Dr. David Blake at Royal Woods General. Your husband, Lynn, was involved in an accident."

Rita fought to keep the smile out of her voice. "Oh, my God. Is it serious?"

"I would rather discuss this in person. How soon can you be here?"

"I'll need to get a taxi...half an hour?"

"Alright."

When Rita hung up, she grinned. Before leaving, she would have to gather the children and tell them.

Something she would enjoy.

The "movie" A Queen and Her Maid is a reference to an AberrantScript story.