My Father My Bully

I never knew my father growing up.

I realize, upon saying that, just how common a sentiment that is, especially within my generation. I suppose that if anything really sets me apart from others who grew up that way, it was the absolute, impenetrable wall of silence and secrecy regarding my father during my tentative years, and more importantly, how radically my life changed upon meeting him.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning.

My name is Mark Gordon. I am 25 years old, an only child, and recently engaged to the love of my life, Mandi Jackson. Don't worry, we will get to her later. First, let me take you all the way back to my childhood.

I was raised by a single mother, an absolute gorgeous creature named Juliana. Juliana O'Donnell to be exact ( she and my father never married). I had a nice, modest upbringing in a quiet suburb of Pennsylvania. My mom made a decent income and I never ceased to be amazed at how much she could stretch her wages to not only meet our basic needs, but also give me the best childhood possible. Honestly, every Christmas and birthday were next level, and I don't think that I appreciated at the time just how much effort my mom put into making those memories for me, or just how much she denied herself to make it happen. I wish I had taken the time before to really think about it, to really let her know just how much it really meant to me.

Though we weren't exactly the upper crust in our little town, we were at the very least lower middle class, which put me in good company with most of the other kids my age. I had a pretty substantial little group of friends and seemingly always had someone over or was going over to someone else's house, so I guess that it never really occurred to me just how lonely my mom was. She didn't really have any friends, and didn't really interact with anyone outside of co-workers and, of course, me. She had living parents and siblings, but for reasons unclear to me at the time, there was just no contact between them. I asked about it one time when I was 10, and my mom didn't really give me a clear answer, but the forlorn look in her eyes told me pretty much all I needed to know. I never asked again.

My mom got diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 16. Naturally, it hit me like a brick wall, but it didn't really seem to change her demeanor. If she was worried or anything, she kept it hidden from me. She continued to be the supportive, surface level of happy mom she always had been.

When I turned 18 and got my license, I wasn't expecting much. Yet my mom still managed to have a car waiting for me in the driveway when I got home. It was a used 2012 Kia with 65,000 miles, but to me, it was better than a brand new Ferrari. I tried to refuse the gift as I felt that there were a number of more worthy causes we could have devoted that money to, but my mom wouldn't hear of it. I don't know how much she paid for it, and I knew that she wouldn't tell me if I asked. She was and still is the most selfless, loving woman I have ever known.

She had gotten very thin and frail at that point, and no longer seemed to be reacting to treatments. She was still so young - she was only 36 when I turned 18 - and beautiful, and I hardly recognized this fragile, haggard seemingly ancient creature pretending to be my mom. It wasn't enough that cancer was robbing me of my mom - must it also rob her of her youth and vitality in her final days?

One night we were sitting together on our couch, my arm around her, her head on my shoulder, her shallow breathing being the only sounds in the house. Finally, she sighed, and said in a trembling voice, "When I am gone... it's probably best that you go live with your father, and let him take care of you for a while. I reached out to him about a month ago, and he was receptive to the idea."

The silence was deafening, and to me it felt as though time had stood still. My father...? He was alive? And he knew about me?

I didn't know if I should feel angry, heartbroken, confused or what, so I settled on a combination of those emotions. My mom lifted her head from my shoulder and with considerable effort, made her way over to the shelf next to the television. This shelf was a cluttered mess, housing our DVD and BluRay collection, a smattering of books, some potted plants my mom attempted to nurse back to life, and her ceramic cat collection. My mom bent over with a groan and rifled through the books on the fourth shelf, before finally finding what she was looking for. She pulled out an oblong, odd shaped book and staggered back to the couch.

I hated watching her move. It reminded me of all that had been taken from her as she moved about like an elderly person, and it broke my heart.

She reclaimed her seat next to me, and opened the book up, thumbing through it's pages. I had never really seen a photo album before; it seemed a bit of an anomaly in the digital age. Yet here my mom was, thumbing through a collection of different snap shots of different people throughout the ages, none of whom I recognized. I assumed that a good amount of them were her family, and I had no desire to re-open those old wounds.

Finally, she came across a picture of, if I am to be honest, the almost living incarnation of white trash. A white man seemingly in his 50s or 60s, with a mullet of silver hair cascading beneath a Harley Davidson baseball cap. He wore sunglasses though the picture was obviously at night, and his wrinkled face was offset with a grey handle bar mustache. He wore a black Miller Lite shirt with the sleeves cut off not unlike a muscle shirt, though there were no muscles to be seen. He lifted a long neck bottle of Miller Lite towards the camera, as if toasting it. My mom's thin, bony finger landed upon him.

"There. That's him. J.D. Livingston. That's your father."

I don't know what to say. My mind was racing with a thousand differing thoughts, and I felt a flurry of conflicting emotions. A good sized part of me wanted to reach through the picture and punch the son of a bitch, not just for abandoning me, but for the real unforgivable sin : for breaking my mother's heart.

I looked over at my mom, and she had a winsome smile upon her lips, and her eyes glistened with emotion. I had all sorts of questions, but looking at him, and then looking at my mom... I guess that was when I first noticed the age disparity. He was all ready an older looking man with grey hair in this picture, and given that it was indeed a real, tangible picture, that called into question how long ago it might have been taken. I thought for a moment, trying to choose the appropriate words, then cleared my throat as I proceeded.

"So, uh... how did you guys, like, meet?"

I should have known by my mom's body language and reaction to this question that it wasn't going to be good. She covered her face with her hands, perhaps in grief, perhaps in shame... then answered.

"Well, uh... J.D. was actually dating my mother when I first met him. He was just so... different than the other guys she dated after divorcing dad. My mom - your grandmother - well, you know, she was a professor at the local college, and was very well read. And your grandfather was a doctor, which I believe that I might have told you before... anyway, following the divorce, she initially dated people of the same ilk - professionals, scholars, even an author or two. Anyway, she ended up going to some outside concert one night, and that's where she met J.D. He was a little bit older than her, he was a drop out, a drunk... very rough and uncouth. My mom was initially a little repelled by him, but I guess that there was something so unrelentingly... MALE about him, this raw masculinity, that she was just drawn to him. He was very aggressive and overt in flirting with her, and well... my mom went to the concert with the town veterinarian, but ended up leaving with J.D., and going to his trailer house that very night. From what I understand, it was quite the little scandal in our social circle."

My mom reached over to her cup of brewed tea and sipped it thoughtfully, her mind finally giving memories long repressed and hidden away free reign to run within the fields of her mind.

"I was a junior in high school when she started dating him. I was still trying to heal from the divorce myself - you know that every girl's first love is her dad. I was still very upset about the whole affair, and I hadn't made it easy on my mom with any of the stuffy, boring would-be replacements she had tried to bring home, and I had every intention of being just as tough on this J.D., the minute I heard his motorcycle roaring through our cul-de-sac and pulling into our driveway."

As if on cue, my mom flipped a page to show me what I assumed to be her childhood home - a very palatial, elaborate two story structure in what appeared to be a very exclusive neighborhood. It looked like something out of an advertisement - the lawn was lush and green, replete with a blossoming garden and well maintained shrubbery. The house was an immaculate white colour with yellow paneling and trim on the windows... simply put, it was posh, and very beautiful.

"You can only imagine the scandal when this dirty old man in a sleeveless shirt came roaring into our little neighborhood on his motorcycle. The elderly neighbors likely feigned fainting, while the younger ones had their phones in hand, ready to dial 911. They probably thought that he had come to rob us, so when my mom came running out to meet him in her sundress, and he picked her up and twirled her around... oh, what I would have given to see their faces!"

She chuckled to herself at this, but I remained stone faced. I was rapt in my attention - mom NEVER talked about her family, and here she was reminiscing fondly and even laughing at the memories. Her joy seemed to be genuine, and not just the result of a few too many painkillers as well.

The joy wouldn't last.

"She was eager to introduce us to him, so a couple of nights after meeting him she invited him over for dinner. She was a woman possessed... she was addicted to this man, and couldn't seem to get enough of him. I looked forward to the dinner, if for no other reason than to see him with my own eyes, and determine how he had bewitched my mother."

"So he shows up, and he's wearing the same sweaty cap, sleeveless shirt and stained denim jeans that he is in this picture. Hell, looking back, I don't even know if he had any other clothes. He shows up, and Bryce - my brother - Sandra, my little sister who was 3 at the time, and I, all feel like we are just going to FAINT! THIS guy? THIS is who our mother is so gaga over? We couldn't see it, and Bryce was convinced that mother was simply going through a midlife crisis."

She turned the page, and there was another picture of J.D., this time posing next to his motorcycle while a dog of indeterminate breed sat next to him. "He walks in, a six pack of beer beneath his arm... he shakes Bryce's hand so firmly that Bryce's face contorted in pain. Then he comes to me, and lowers his sunglasses as if to get a better look at me... then he whistles, and says that if dinner is half as delectable as I am, then he's in for a treat! Keep in mind that I had JUST turned 18, and he says this right in front of our mother - who he was supposedly dating at the time. I was shocked. SHOCKED!

Anyway, he sits between mother and I during dinner, and of course his dining habits and topics of conversation were ill mannered and deplorable. Bryce was infuriated. And then, right there beneath the table, during dinner... I feel him place a calloused hand on my thigh. I was wearing a sundress, not unlike my mother... this old man's rough, wrinkled hand was on my bare thigh! I was shocked, and instantly my body is covered in goose bumps... J.D. keeps talking away and eating as if everything is natural, meanwhile his hand is moving up and down my inner thigh, and I was a virgin at the time, okay? My body felt like electricity was running through it; like I was on fire..."

Mom looked over at me and saw the look on my face, and chuckled, cutting her reverie short. "I don't suppose that any teenage boy wants to hear a graphic description about the time they were felt up beneath the table during dinner, so I will cut the story short. Suffice it to say, he brought me to orgasm there beneath the table... and I had never even been with a boy before. I went to bed that night confused, emotional... and well, turned on. My mom continued to see him, and he became a regular fixture around the house. Whenever he would come around, my stomach would sink and I would feel like I should run and hide... but instead, I tried harder and harder to get his attention. I would wear my volleyball uniform even though there wasn't a game... my shortest of shorts, dresses with nothing on beneath... anything I could to catch his eye. I felt like I couldn't breathe unless I knew that he was looking at me... and when he would 'accidentally' brush up against me, or sneak his hand across my ass or up my dress... God! This was a man in his, what? Late fifties? Dating my mother? Yet I felt like my 18 year old body was craving him..."

I squirmed in my chair uncomfortably. My mom chuckled, patting my leg reassuringly. "I know, I know. But I do have a point. After my mom had been dating him for about three weeks, and he and I had exchanged enough stolen glances and loaded words, I came out of school one day to find him in the parking lot, astride his motorcycle, amidst all the other people in their Mercedes, or their Rolls Royces... you can only imagine the glances he got. Or the glances I got when I hopped onto the bike behind him, and wrapped my arms around him. I asked him if he was going to give me a ride home... he just turned around and winked at me. He took me to the dirtiest, scariest hole in the wall motel I had ever seen, and without even being asked, almost like it was just... understood, I willingly gave my 18 year old body over to this dirty old man. I was on no birth control whatsoever, and he didn't even offer to wear any sort of protection... and I didn't want him to. That man fucked me for almost three hours, and he must have come inside of me at least 4 times."

"JESUS CHRIST, mom!" I exclaimed as I bolted upright. She looked down, her cheeks flush with embarrassment. I instantly regretted my outburst, and without saying anything, sat back down beside her. There was a momentary silence before she continued her story.

"We continued to see each other in secret... he would pick me up from school and take me back to that hotel almost every day, and then see my mom that night. It was so... hard to act like everything was normal when he would come over in the evening and fawn over my mom, meanwhile I still had bits of him leaking out of me from a couple of hours earlier."

I made a motion with my hands, communicating my shock and disgust, and my mom held up a hand, indicating that she understood. "Then he started coming over late at night, after everyone had gone to bed. He would drive this old beat up truck those nights, so that the motorcycle wouldn't wake up the neighborhood - or especially so it wouldn't wake up my mom, and alert her to the fact that her teenage daughter was stealing her boyfriend. He would text me on my phone - that was a bit of a luxury in those days, you know," she punctuated this with a playful elbow to my ribs. "He never asked... he just told me that he was coming over. It wasn't so much an order... it was just understood. I would sneak downstairs, unlock the door, and run back up to my room, and get ready for him. Sometimes he wanted me naked, sometimes he wanted me in the volleyball uniform, sometimes in my pajamas, and of course, a couple of times he wanted me waiting for him in my school uniform. That old fantasy, you know," she said, with a playful roll of her eyes.

"I actually had a boyfriend at the time... and all we had ever done was kiss. Little did he know that almost every day after school, and most nights in the middle of the night, his loving, faithful girlfriend was having marathon sessions of unprotected sex with a man older than any of our fathers. I never really felt guilty about it... not for cheating on my boyfriend, at least. Because, to me, it didn't feel like cheating. It felt like my body belonged to him, so it felt... right. Sure, I felt kind of guilty about fucking my mom's boyfriend... there she was, just a few feet away, asleep and snug in her bed, while on the other side of the wall, her boyfriend was claiming her teenage daughter's body and filling me full of his spunk two or three times over the course of any given day. It was like he couldn't get enough of me, or like he was determined to get me pregnant. Even at eighteen, that thought occurred to me... but rather than scare me, the thought of my swollen teenage body, pregnant with his child, just made me shudder with excitement."

Sure, I was absolutely repulsed by hearing all of this. How could I not be? And worse was the dawning realization that my father was an absolute, alcoholic piece of cheating shit. But I kept my thoughts and reactions to myself, and allowed my mother to continue unburdening herself.

"Anyway, this continued pretty much daily for at least a couple of months. Sometimes he would stay over with my mom, and once she was asleep, he would come into my room and have his way with me for hours. Sure, there was a part of me that was jealous of my mom, possibly even resentful. But I took comfort in the fact that it seemed like I was the one he really wanted to be with, you know? That I was really his, and he was really mine. How else could he manage to have me 2 or 3 times a night? And of course, he never so much as offered to use a condom, and I wasn't on any sort of birth control... and he wouldn't have pulled out even if I asked him to - which I never did." My mom punctuated this thought with a winsome smile, and for the briefest of moments it seemed that her eyes were about to glisten. I was confused... did my mom actually miss this piece of shit?

She reached over to the counter and retrieved a prescription bottle full of painkillers. Her eyes narrowed with strain as she wrestled with the lid, until I shook off the mental cobwebs and took the bottle from her, easily removing the cap. She smiled in appreciation, as she held out an outstretched hand.

"Two, please," she requested. I crooked my head at her, narrowing my eyes sternly. "Two?," I echoed. "Mom, you know how strong these things are."

She looked at me incredulously, then cackled until she coughed, raising a fist to her mouth before unfurling it into an open palm yet again. "And...? I am still your mother, and the resident authority figure here, not to mention the one that's dying of cancer! So drop the lecture, be my faithful son and help dear old mom get some relief, okay?".

Defeated, I plopped two of the oval white devils into her palm. She smiled lovingly at me. "Thank you, baby," she said, before popping them into her mouth and chasing them down with the room temperature water bottle at her side. She sighed with contentment, as she leaned back into the couch.

"Of course, it couldn't go on forever. We were bound to be found out. He was still dating my mom, but had pretty much quit being physical with her, which simply meant all that much more for me. One weekend, he told her that he and some of his biker buddies were going on a drive to the next state. It was a lie, of course, and about 1 o'clock the next morning, he texts me, so I run down stairs, unlock the door, and run back to my bedroom, where I strip down to my bra and panties.

Anyway, he shows up, and immediately he was on me. He stood behind me and kissed my neck while his calloused, wrinkled hands explored my smooth, young body. I could feel his rock hard erection poking up against me, so I start grinding my ass against it. This drives him wild! His hands were rubbing my inner thighs while he was sucking my earlobe, but now they went up to my breasts. He lifted the cup of the bra and started massaging them, his fingers at work on my rock hard nipples. God, I don't know what it was about this fat, disgusting old man, but my body just responded to his every touch, and I wanted him. I had to have him!"