Vengeance Is Mine

I was standing over my father's grave at Sunnycrest Cemetery as the cleric spouted empty words and prayers, and as my mother wept crocodile tears into her lace hankie.

"Be strong, Lucinda," said my Great Aunt Martha, patting my mother's shoulder. Aunt Martha was my father's mother's sister.

My mother sobbed even more energetically into the damp embroidered rag, and her shoulders shook with false emotion.

"Now, now, dear," said Aunt Martha. "You'll make yourself sick. You've got to be strong now, dear. Strong for you and Phillip (I was Phillip.) You know Norton would have wanted that. Don't you?"

My mother nodded her head in agreement, as she again began to weep uncontrollably.

What an act! I knew how much she missed my father. I knew exactly how much she had loved him. Not very much.

The fact that my father had had a fatal coronary and was now lying at my feet in his coffin, was not entirely due to high cholesterol. My mother had hounded him to death. Nag. Nag. Nag. Pick. Pick. Pick. Hound. Hound. Hound. What a bitch! My father had finally found peace.... In the next world. My mother had killed him. I knew that.

I had loved my father so much. What a kind sweet man he had been. Warm, loving, gentle. But my mother had never appreciated him. Nothing he ever did was good enough. He snored. He wore mismatched socks. His table manners were atrocious. He smoked stinky cigars. Nag. Nag. Nag. Pick. Pick. Pick. Hound. Hound. Hound.

My girlfriend, Joanne, took my hand and squeezed it. She was trying to comfort me. Nothing was going to comfort me. I had lost my dearest parent and best friend. My father, Norton Hormquist. Now, my late father. But more than grief for my dear father, I felt another emotion. I felt glacial hatred. Hatred toward my mother who had driven my father into his grave. Somehow I would avenge his death. I didn't know how, but somehow, someday, somewhere. Vengeance would be mine.

We got into the limousine and they chauffeured us back to our house. Aunt Martha had come in from Cincinnati and was staying in the spare bedroom. And yes, I was still living at home. I was 23 years old, and had been out of college for two years, but was unable to find a job. I was still living in the family manse. A prisoner of the?booming? economy.

We had a light supper, Aunt Martha, my mother, Joanne, and I. Later in the evening some people stopped by to offer their condolences. Harry Milbard, my father's lawyer drove over and sat down in the library with my mother and me. He had some documents in his briefcase. He took out the papers, and after clearing his throat gave us the news.

"I don't understand," said my mother.

"It's very simple. He left you fifty thousand dollars. Everything else: the house, the stocks, the bonds, the bank accounts. All the assets. Everything goes to Phillip."

"But I was his wife," protested my mother.

"And Phillip was his son. He chose to leave his entire estate to Phillip."

My mother's face went white. Her mouth was working silently. Her jaw was moving, but no words were coming out. She had thought she was going to be sitting pretty, living in my father's house, spending my father's money. But all that was going to me. Nice. Thank you, dad. Already I was tasting the sweetness of my revenge. Maybe I should just kick my mother out of the house. Make her get a job, rent an apartment. That would be nasty. But not nasty enough. But everybody would think I was a cruel son. No. I had to come up with something better to punish her with. I would ruin her life forever. I would make her sorry for the way she had treated my father.

At eleven o'clock Joanne left to go home. We would not be fucking tonight. I was in mourning. I had to exercise some proprieties. I had to make some sacrifices. And giving up fucking Joanne for a few nights was not such a great sacrifice. We would probably end up getting married, but I was not deliriously excited with the prospect. I had a feeling there was an incipient 'mother' buried deep inside her female heart.

After a few days, Aunt Martha flew back to Cincinnati, and I was alone in the house with my mother. She had regained her equilibrium. She figured, after all, I was her son, and she was my mother. So what if I had control of the purse strings. She could still do as she wished. After all, I certainly loved my mother. She thought. She wished.

For the next two weeks, my mother moped around the house, eating cookies, candy, putting on weight. Her ass was getting rounder and rounder. Her tits were getting bigger and bigger. She was developing an hourglass figure. She would have been really in style in the 1890's.

She drove down to the department stores and shopped a couple of times. She came back with expensive new dresses. I was not happy about that. I was the one who was going to have to pay the credit card bill. But I decided to say nothing. Not yet. This was all new territory for me. I had to feel my way.

A few days later, Margo Spillinglass, my mother's best friend, insisted that my mother come down to the club. It would be good for her to get out of the house. We were members of the exclusive Sunnycrest Country Club, but we didn't really take advantage of our membership, other than to dine in the fancy clubhouse restaurant once a week. Occasionally, my father had gone to the club to play tennis or squash, but my mother was not athletic. She even hated the pool. She said pools were unsanitary.

"Do you want to come with me?" she asked me.

"No. I'll stay home. I'm reading Crime and Punishment. I don't know what you're going to do at the club."

"Margo and I are going to play canasta with two of the other women, and we've signed up for golf lessons. Margo says there's a new golf pro down at the club, and that he's a very good teacher."

"You? Play golf?" I gave a really nasty laugh.

"Just you wait. I could turn out to be another Martina," my mother said.

"She doesn't play golf," I corrected her.

"I'm determined to get a hole in one," she insisted. And then she left for the club. I picked up my book, and worked my way from the crime to the punishment.

When she got home from the club, she was all a twitter. I had never seen her in such a good mood.

"He's wonderful," she enthused.

"Who's wonderful?" I asked.

"Glen," said my mother.

"Who's Glen?" I pursued.

"The new golf pro," said my mother, who looked at me like I was an idiot. "He's so handsome. Tall. Big muscles. Black wavy hair. Dimples in his cheeks. A cleft in his chin." She went on and on. I had never seen her so excited.

The next morning, she drove down to the club. Early. Very early. She had signed up for golf lessons. A lot of golf lessons. From Glen, the golf pro. Glen, the handsome, muscular, sexy, dimpled, clefted, new golf pro.

I wanted to remind her that she was a recent widow. That she had only three weeks ago lost her husband. My words would have floated, unheard, through the empty air, and drifted up into the sky. She was besotted with Glen, the golf pro. She was like a high school girl having a first crush. I was totally disgusted. I said nothing.

Then one afternoon, she didn't come home from the club. She called me and told me to take a hamburger out of the freezer and put it in the microwave. Glen was taking her out to dinner and to the movies. She had lost her husband five weeks ago, and she was going out on a dinner/movie date??? I said nothing. I took the hamburger out of the freezer. I defrosted the hamburger. I broiled the hamburger. But I, myself, was stewing.

Wait. It gets worse. She started coming home late. A lot. Like ten or eleven p.m. She was dating the golf pro. And when she got home, she would tell me how wonderful he was. How handsome. How funny. How she loved to see his dimples when he laughed, which was all the time. I wondered if my recently widowed mother was screwing the golf pro. Actually, I was sure she was screwing the golf pro. I just didn't want to think about it.

I, myself, was not having sex, and I wasn't even the widow. Joanne kept begging me to sleep with her, but I said 'no' I wasn't in the mood. And I wasn't. I was still in mourning. And although my mother was wearing black, she, apparently, was not still in mourning. And on the golf course, she was not wearing black. She was wearing white. A fashionable, expensive, white, linen pants suit for lady golfers, which I had just been billed for. Nice.

"Come down to the club with me today," said my mother.

"I don't want to go to the club," I resisted. "I have to finish Middlemarch."

"But I want you to meet Glen," she pouted.

"I have to finish my book."

"But you've never even met him. I've told him all about you."

"Not today, mother." I was firm.

And I remained firm. I did not go down to the club. I did not meet Glen. Mother continued to get home very late. It had gotten to be such a regular occurrence that she no longer bothered to call me to get something out of the freezer.

And then one night, the rest of my world came crashing down. It was about three months after my father had died. About two months since she had started taking golf lessons. I heard the car in the driveway around ten o'clock at night. I was on the last paragraph of Finnegan's Wake, but I heard talking out on the porch and shut the book. She hadn't brought him to the house, I hoped.

The key turned in the door. The door opened. My mother entered the house. Following her was a man carrying two heavy suitcases. A tall, handsome, smiling man with black curly hair, ruddy skin, dimples in his cheeks and a cleft in his chin. I had no doubt that this was Glen. Glen, the golf pro.

"Darling," said my mother, rushing up to me, and throwing her arms around me. "What a surprise I have for you. This is Glen. My husband. Glen this is Phillip, my son."

"Your husband?" My voice quivered.

"Yes, darling. Glen and I eloped today. We were married at City Hall. Look at my beautiful ring." She flashed a diamond-encrusted wedding band before my eyes. Where was the plain gold one my father had given her?

I didn't speak. I couldn't speak. I was stunned. My mother, the grieving widow, had married the golf pro, three months after she had buried my father? Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, dad. Thank god you aren't here to see this.

"Glad to meet you, Phillip," said Glen, the golf pro, dropping the suitcase in his right hand on the living room carpet, and reaching out his right hand to shake mine. I think I shook his hand. I'm not sure. I was in a total daze.

"He's staying here?" I asked.

"Of course, darling. He's my husband. We're married now. And that's exactly why we decided to get married today. The lease on Glen's apartment was up, and he would have gone back to Buffalo. He would have left the club. I couldn't let that happen, now could I, sweetheart?" The sweetheart she was referring to was him.

"No, baby, you couldn't let that happen," Glen told her. And then they gave each other a cute, little, sickening kiss right in front of me.

I was appalled.

"So at last you get to meet Glen," said my mother.

"Yes," I said stonily.

"And I get to meet you," said Phillip. "At last I have what I always wanted. A son."

A son? His son? Was he crazy?

"Come, baby. Let's get your stuff up to the bedroom," said my mother to her new husband.

He picked up the suitcases and followed her up the stairs. They were going to the bedroom. To my mother's bedroom. To my father's bedroom. He was going to sleep in my father's bed. He was going to fuck my mother. Oh, hideous, hideous deed. Can such torment be endured? I pushed Finnegan's Wake onto the floor, and slumped back into my armchair, where I buried my face in my hands, and wept bitterly.

After an hour, I went up the stairs, and as I passed the closed door of the master bedroom on the way to my own room, I heard giggling from behind the door. Giggling. And noises. I knew those noises. Fucking noises. They were having their wedding night fuck. They were on their fucking honeymoon. In my house. Oh, hideous, hideous deed. Torment. My mother, my torment. Oh, god.

When I finally fell into a fitful troubled sleep, my brain spilled with images of iron-maidens, bullwhips, chains, padlocks. Torture chamber goodies. But there wasn't a torture in this world sufficiently gruesome for my mother. Cold, faithless whore.

At breakfast the next morning, Glen tried to make chitchat with me, but I was having none of it. I was cold, distant, and barely polite.

"We're gonna be good friends," he assured me, ruffling my hair, when he got up from the table. Good friends. Yeah. Sure. "You'll see," he added. Then he and my mother went out to the car and she drove him down to the club.

When they had gone, I went up to the master bedroom and stared down at the defiled sheets in pure disgust. They had rutted in this bed. In my father's bed. He had slept on my father's side of the bed. He had stuck his golf-pro cock into my mother's cunt, which had until very recently been occupied by my father. He had taken everything. I bent down to sniff the sheets. I wanted the full impact of the horror.

Everything was peachy-dandy, lovey-dovey for a few days. And then one evening I heard loud voices coming from behind the master bedroom door. They were arguing. They were having a fight. I planted my ear against the door, trying to get the gist of the disagreement.

"Come on, Lucinda, honey. Please."

"I said 'no'."

"But it's my favorite thing. You said you would, after we got married."

"I changed my mind. I don't want to do it. It's dirty."

"It's not dirty, Lucinda. It's beautiful."

"No. Absolutely not. No anal intercourse. And that's final," my mother said.

Ah, so that was it. He wanted anal intercourse.

"You promised," he said. "Bitch," he muttered.

"You'll just have to do it the old-fashioned way," my mother said tightly.

They were still arguing when I walked down the hall to my room, and shut the door. An idea was beginning to form in my fevered brain. Just the germ of an idea for a possible punishment. I suddenly got deliriously hopeful and happy. I laughed, and I laughed. If I could pull it off, vengeance would, at last, be mine.

The next morning, at breakfast, they had apparently made up. They were kissing and nuzzling each other between sips of orange juice. Her hands were tangling through his thick black curly hair. I could even see his tongue snake out between his lips, between her lips, into her mouth. At the breakfast table. Disgusting. Disgusting.

My mother was enchanted with her handsome, athletic, new male-toy. Her sexual motor was running in ways that it had never run when my father was sitting across the breakfast table. Bitch. Cunt. Whore.

I made an unanticipated announcement. "I want to go down to the club today," I said.

They both looked at me in shocked surprise.

"You want to go to the club?" asked my mother in disbelief.

"Yes. I want to take golf lessons. I want to learn how to play golf. Will you teach me to play golf, Glen?"

"Sure," said Glen. "Be glad to." He was absolutely delighted. This was his chance to bond with his new son. He gave me a wide, wide smile, and his dimples disappeared into creases. Yes. I was going to take golf lessons from my mother's new husband, Glen, the golf pro.

My mother dropped us at the club and went on to Margo Spillinglass' house. They were going to have a shopping day.

I was still in mourning, and wearing black pants, and a white shirt, with a gray tie, but I noticed all the golfers at the club were wearing whites and yellows. I was the only one with a tie. I would have to get myself some club clothing.

Glen took me out on the green. We were at the first hole. Glen stuck a little white peg in the ground, which he said was a 'tee.' Then he took a little hard white dimpled ball---I knew that that was a golf ball. I had seen golf balls before. He took it, and placed it on the tee. Then he handed me a wooden club from his golf bag. Actually, the clubs weren't his. They belonged to the country club, and were used by members who had left their clubs at home. They were also used for lessons. I was now getting my first lesson.

"Now, you see the hole over there?" Glen asked me.

"What hole?" I asked. I was trying to follow his pointing finger.

"That one. Over there. Where the flag says '1'. " He pointed again.

I saw it. "It's so far away," I complained.

"Well that's the game. To get the ball from here, way over into that hole. Do you know how to hold the club?" he asked me.

"No. Is there a special way?"

"Yes," he answered, in forced cheerfulness. He hadn't realized that I was so stupid. This was not going to be the fun day that he had expected. "I'll show you how to hold it," he said. "You stand next to the tee, like this," and he positioned me. Then he walked around and stood behind me, and reached his arms around my waist, and positioned my hands on the handle of the golf club. The two of us got used to swinging it in a six-inch arc next to the tee. His hands were over mine. He was tight against my back.

Yes. This was what I had wanted. The fly of his pants was barely grazing the seat of my pants. As we practiced our mini-swings, I twisted my body slightly. I bent a wee bit more at the waste, until my bottom had made the intended contact.

He was explaining the dynamics of the swing, when the contact occurred, and his voice began to get a little funny. I just acted as if I didn't notice anything. I continued to swing the club. With each swing, I kind of twisted my bottom so that it moved against him. I turned my face to ask him a question, and I noticed that his face was ruddier than usual. He was a little embarrassed. But he was not backing away. With his hands over mine, we were continuing to swing, and I was continuing to tease.

This was my plan. This was the diabolic scheme I had devised to destroy my mother. She was so proud and happy about having a rugged, handsome, athletic, new husband. She was strutting around. Showing her great catch off to all the other women. Suppose she were to lose him? Lose him to someone else. And not just someone else. Not even to another woman. Suppose she were to lose him to her son? To her own son. To me....... HAH! Yes. I had decided that that would be my revenge. I would alienate Glen's affections. My mother would lose her exciting new husband. She would lose him to me. I had now taken the first step. Step number one. But other events would unfold in an orderly course.

Glen stepped back. It had been decided that I would actually take my first swing. I would whack the ball, and send it flying hundreds of yards onto the far green where the '1' flagpole was. I swung. I missed.

Glen moved back behind me, and we again practiced swinging together, as he explained what I was to do. I'm afraid I was concentrating more on gluteus-genital contact than on golf. When he stepped back, I tried again. I gave a great swing. The ball went only about ten feet. And also it went way to the left. Not at all straight ahead, where I had been aiming.

But Glen was very patient. He worked with me, and worked with me, and instructed me in the gentlest fashion. Never once did he raise his voice in total exasperation.

I finally took my final putt and sent the ball skimming nervously on the edge of the hole before it finally gave up and dropped in. Par on the hole was seven strokes. I got it in sixty-one.

We only got to play three holes that day, because it was taking me so long to sink the ball, and because Glen had other people to teach. I went back to the clubhouse and nursed a coke, waiting for the day to end. I would do better tomorrow.

As I sipped my coke, I reminisced about our ever-so-slight gluteus-genital contact. I couldn't be sure, but I think I was having an effect on Glen. I don't think I imagined the hardness I was beginning to feel against my buttocks. A hardness, decorously packed inside his white trousers. I had learned that Glen was a devotee of anal intercourse. My mother was not permitting him to indulge his dearest fantasy. Silly woman. What a man can't get in one place, he'll find in another. I was another. Inexperienced as I was, and even though the thought of guy/guy sex had always repelled me, I would do anything to destroy my mother's life, as she had destroyed my father's and thus my own. I would not deny Glen his deepest desire, anal intercourse, if the occasion should arise.