Author's Note - A tale in many parts of a single mother and her son and their adventures in the great Southwest.
Part 1 - A Strange and Tangled Beginning
Ted had several math problems to work on, and was moving as soon as his phone chimed at him. When he got to the kitchen, his mother was standing in the dim light fixing hot milk to take to bed with her. Ted and Kim were night owls, but she went to bed late, and he got up early.
There was an elaborate espresso machine on the counter, which he set for his usual nonfat latte.
She walked into his arms. "It is alarming that I have to look up at you after so many years of hugging you to my front." Kim had very fine breasts and Ted cherished memories of his head buried between them.
He caressed her breast and pinched the large nipple at the end. "That's not permitted."
"I am eighteen now. No more restrictions on sex."
"I don't do men."
"Your only child, a male conceived anonymously in college, is now eighteen and an adult. Old rules have changed." His voice was husky and authoritative.
She tried to wrestle out of his grip, but he tightened and raised her off the floor. She tried to kick his shin but he put her over his shoulder and carried her to bed. "Stay there, I'll get your milk."
Her night dress was on the floor, but the sheet covered her. He handed over the warm mug and turned out the light.
Silence. Finally, she said, "We are going to talk?"
"Before the party, we are. Today would be good. What about a picnic at the mine?"
She didn't answer. He pulled the sheet off and grasped a foot. He worked over the many bones and muscles and tendons. His tongue licked between the toes.
"This is some kind of torture?"
"I am attracted to your feet. Actually, I am attracted to all of you. But your feet especially. I see you in those impossible heels and worry you will damage them."
He resumed his flexing and massaging of the foot. She offered the other, but pulled the sheet over her important parts.
She was dozing off when he finished. He arranged the covers and kissed her cheek. He needed to finish the math problems.
His concentration was intense, but distracted by the coming party. She had managed, all those years ago, to be impregnated nine months before her birthday. She did it deliberately, making sure that all three of her target inseminators got a good dose of sperm into her that evening. But her contrary son arrived at five minutes to midnight, thus depriving her of synchronization with her own natal day. They celebrated together anyway, one year on his day, the next year on her adjoining day. This year, it was neither, because the event needed to be on a Friday to accommodate the staff members.
After an hour's drive in the desert to the southeast, and then miles on a rocky road, she pulled over at an abandoned mine tunnel. There was a story about her acquisition of the mine, but he didn't have all the details.
A concealed locker provided chairs, a table, and some tools. It was February, and cool in the brilliant sunshine. He unpacked the lunch. There were fancy sandwiches from her favorite upscale deli, and a bottle of expensive champagne.
She poured two glasses and they toasted their birthdays. She was forty and not happy about that signpost of aging. They looked at each other. She asked, "Is this your talk or my talk?"
She began, "It's time for me to tell you about how you came to be. It's not a good story, at least in the beginning."
He stopped her there. "Did you get pregnant the regular way?"
"Yes."
"But you didn't know the guy, or know much about him?"
"No."
"But you had me without the guy around, and you have tried to make up for no father in my life, and you still love me?"
"Yes."
"Maybe that's all I need to know."
There was a long silence.
"You don't want my trip, is that it?" She had a floppy hat and dark sunglasses on and was trying to look mysterious.
"Not exactly, but close. You shouldn't worry about the missing dad business. There are a lot of guys in my school with no dads around. Killed in drug wars. Still in Mexico, or Vietnam, or Thailand, with no green card. Got transferred to some snowy place and left the family here. Sees them a few times a year."
"You are telling me you are tough enough to deal with it?"
"I guess. There's lots worse things could have happened to us. We could be on the other side of the tracks, half starving, and you on the streets, begging, and having pimps after you. You'd be surprised at the stories I hear in school."
"This is why you fought me about boarding school? So you could get kicked around in a public high school and see the dark side?"
"You were fighting yourself. When I was ten or something like that, I asked about the strange people that came to the house, and you told me it helped to know people who did a lot of different things in life."
"Arfed myself, did I?"
'You saw my IQ score from school?"
"Yes, it's over 180, higher than mine."
"So you must have screwed a smart guy to make me?"
She laughed and blushed, "I guess."
"The point is we both have photographic memories, and we don't forget much. I can quote things you said to me when I was five and we were still in Santa Fe."
"You are going to hold all that against me?" She wasn't looking happy.
"Yes. The good and the bad both."
"I'm not sure I know what you mean?"
"For years, you have been the mystery woman in my life. I'm old enough and smart enough now to have some mysteries of my own. If you get angry, I am a legal adult. You can kick me out."
He stood and cut the talk short. "Let me drive back. A birthday present."
Sulking in the passenger seat as desert passed by, she felt herself sliding into one of her black, depressed moods. Shit!
Behind the wheel of the Mercedes, he was feeling full of himself and knew it. And sorry he had dumped on her at the mine. His plans didn't require that, so why did he do it?
He wanted to be alpha. In her distorted world, all males were beta, if that. She had played the amateur eugenics game and won. Now she had to deal with his maturing body and mind. Big, strong body, overflowing with testosterone and athletic skill. Big, agile, inquisitive brain. Investigator of secrets, especially hers. Hider of secrets, especially his.
But right now, he needed to snap her out of a birthday fugue. Looking at the beautiful form next to him, he made a resolution to keep her from the dumps from now on. That might be a challenge, a big challenge, even for him.
"When did you decide all your employees were going to be bisexual women? Correction: beautiful, bisexual women?"
"I'll tell you, but just for my curiosity's sake, when did you first notice that little detail?"
"Just after my birthday. You sent me to the Garrison Street house with an urgent message for Laura. I think her phone died or something and you said to hop on my bike and zoom over there with a message to call you immediately. Because I was in a hurry, I just skipped through the patio door from the pool side and found Laura and Sarah getting each other off in a big way. They were embarrassed and didn't know what to do so they ran out and jumped in the pool. They started begging me not to tell. I sat on a lounger and said there had to be conditions. I told them to put their arms around each other and walk slowly to my end of the pool. They got about halfway and the water was down to their bellybuttons. Those four incredible tits were pointing at me, stiff as a board and glistening with water in the sunshine. Then I said they had to close their eyes and describe out loud in fine detail what they liked about their partner's tits. I said tits deliberately to give them a jolt."