The Mother Tracie Deserves

TRACIE TAKES CONTROL

In better times, mornings in our house had been a hum of activity. Before the divorce, it was all about getting Tracie ready for school. I'd make her lunch and some hot breakfast to give her the best start to her day. I'd usually drive her to school and she'd give me a little kiss before she got out of the car. We would always tell each other, "Love you."

After the divorce, when I had to start working again, Tracie and I would get ready together in the mornings. By then, Tracie's friends had started driving, so fortunately, one or another of them would come by to give her a ride to school. When she left, my sweet stepdaughter would still call out, "Bye, Mom! Love you!" and I would call back, "Love you too, honey! Have a good day!" She'd usually give me a quick goodbye kiss.

Those many mornings, years of them, life with Tracie had been good, normal, happy, even with the interruption of my break-up with her father.

But such happy mornings were a thing of the past by that gray, overcast spring day.

I had no memory of going to my bed the night before, but somehow that's where I woke up. I didn't want to open my eyes. I smacked my dry tongue. There was an odd taste in my mouth. My lips were chapped.

The instant I tried sitting up, I was stopped by a pounding headache and swimming nausea. I had been waking up with hangovers more and more often, but this one was especially bad.

For some drunken reason, I was naked from the waist up, but still had my sweatpants on from the day before. As I very slowly got myself to a sitting position, my hand touched on something hard in the bed. I pulled the sheet back to see my vibrator. I must have tried again the night before. How pathetic. I would have rolled my eyes, but that hurt too much.

I figured it had to be the weekend, because even though my bedroom had a door to the house's only bathroom, I hadn't heard Tracie getting ready for school.

I sat uncomfortably in my crumpled sheets and felt wretched, not just from the hangover, but from the crushing sadness of what mornings in my life had become. And then came the emotional gut-punch of regret: I had forgotten my daughter's birthday the day before - and instead, I had fought with her and called her a vicious name. I was now fully the shouting, mean drunk my mother had been.

I laid back down in my bed, covering my eyes with my arm, wishing it had all been a bad dream, but knowing I wasn't so lucky.

For hours I stayed there, flat, heavy, hurting, scared to move. I hoped to hear Tracie get picked up by a friend's car to go somewhere, so I could be alone in my misery. But that never happened.

Around midday, out of sickly desperation, I finally dragged myself to the kitchen to make some coffee with shaking hands. I prayed the caffeine would lessen my pounding headache.

I was so sensitive to sound, I could hear through her closed bedroom door the

ticky-tack

of Tracie on her laptop. I hoped she would stay in there until I could hide in my own room again.

But I was too unsteady on my feet to carry my coffee all the way from the kitchen to my bedroom. I made it as far as the dining room table. I slumped into a chair and sipped at the bitter brown drink, hunched over like a broken old woman.

I cringed when Tracie appeared. She strode right up to the table, facing me. It hurt to look up at her.

"This?" she said, circling her finger at me, "is over."

I sighed and muttered, "Could we not talk right now? I'm really feeling horrible."

"Oh, really, Mom? No kidding. You've been feeling horrible for like a year. So we're going to talk right now." She pulled a chair out and sat directly across from me.

The look in my stepdaughter's eyes scared me. I suppressed an acrid hangover burp. "Honey," I said, hoping to avoid a noisy argument, "listen, I'm sorry about last night."

"Oh? What are you sorry about, Mom? Specifically?"

I took a deep breath and said, "I'm really sorry about forgetting your birthday, and calling you the b-word."

She huffed a sarcastic laugh. "Is that all?"

I said, "Well... I know I haven't been much fun lately. I know I've been drinking too much. And I'm sorry for not looking harder for a new job..." There were other things I was sorry for, but I couldn't bring myself to say them, like

I'm sorry for being a failure as your mom.

"Sure, sure," Tracie said. "But isn't there anything else you want to mention, from later last night?"

My heart started beating faster. I cursed myself for getting black-out drunk. I had to hold my coffee cup with both hands to keep it from shaking so much. I said, "If there's something else that I don't remember, sweetheart, I'm really sorry about that too."

"Wow. Alcohol is one hell of a drug. But don't be sorry, Mom. I think you actually did us both a favor. Because it's a done deal. From now on, things are going to be totally different around here."

"I know, I know," I said. "I'm going to stop drinking. For real, this time. I'm serious. And about your birthday, Tracie, I'm going to make it up to you."

"Oh, I know you are."

"I am, I promise."

My daughter laughed. "You promise? That's hilarious, Mom. I don't need your promise. I have something way better than your promise."

She held up her phone.

I said, "What do you mean? Is that a new phone?"

"No, but that's one of the first things you can buy me. A really nice one, too. It's a whole new world now. You just don't know it yet."

"Honey, my head is killing me. Can you explain what you're talking about?"

"What I'm talking about is I'm done with being sad and scared for you all the time, Mom. Last night, I got angry instead. And you gave me probably the best gift possible, because now you're completely fucked."

I grunted at her foul mouth. "Tracie, please don't use that language."

She snickered. "Oh, I'm going to enjoy this. I'm going to play something for you, Mom. I can't wait to see your face."

She propped up her phone on the table with the screen facing me. Its bright glow hurt my eyes.

"What am I looking at?" I said.

"You'd remember if you hadn't been so drunk. Press the play button." She stared at me, waiting. The look on her face worried me - a lot.

With a shaky finger, I tapped the play icon on her phone's screen. Fear was twisting my guts. But of course, I had to watch.

~ * ~

The video was all bumping blurs at first. A woman's voice said, "Tracie... Honey..."

I winced. It was my voice, drunk and slurring. I felt sick hearing it, but kept my eyes locked on the phone.

The video moved around more. I saw a glimpse of myself in a t-shirt. A rocks glass and a bottle of vodka were next to me. Off-camera, Tracie said, "Kiss them, Mom. I want you to."

The video finally settled on my droopy, drunken face. I looked so ugly. But even worse was the bizarre way I was staring at my stepdaughter.

The camera lifted up. The higher view showed that she was a foot in front of my face, and she was topless! And for some reason, I had my hand on her boob!

"Oh my god, what the-!" I jerked back and looked at Tracie across the table. I was about ready to cry. "Is that real? What is this?"

"Oh it's real, Mom. Now keep watching."

I started rubbing my forehead as I looked back at her phone.

In the video, Tracie was leaning her bare boobs toward my face. She said, "Here, Mom." With her free hand, she pulled my head toward her breasts. "Do it."

Her nipple was an inch from my lips. I looked up at her face, blinked an uneven, drunken blink, then focused my eyes on her tits.

"Come on, Mom," Tracie said.

My jaw lowered; my mouth opened wide.

"There you go," she said.

I made a 'mmf' sound as her areola filled my mouth. I started sucking my daughter's breast.

My shocked brain was filled with

No!

as I watched this impossible thing, but I couldn't speak a word. I couldn't even breathe.

I looked at Tracie across the dining room table. Some evil kind of satisfaction was on my stepdaughter's face as she watched my reaction. She nodded and tortured me by saying, "Keep watching."

In the video, Tracie whispered, "Oh my god." She looked up at the camera and adjusted the angle so there could be no mistaking what was happening. Not only did I continue to suck on my daughter's tit, but I started groping both her boobs in my hands.

My drunken breathing was loud when I unlatched my lips to lick at Tracie's nipple, first one, then the other.

At the table, I pushed the phone away, turning my head in disgust, close to vomiting. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. "Please stop," I said, my head spinning.

"Oh, no. Just wait for the best part."

"Honey..." I begged, hot tears starting down my cheeks.

"Look,

Mom!"

I tensed up like I was waiting to get slapped. My stepdaughter pushed her phone toward me. I forced myself to look at it again. As drunk as I was in the video, you would think - and I prayed - that I would just fall over and pass out. But that's not what happened.

I was clearly enjoying my daughter's breasts. I hummed and moaned in growing excitement as I fondled and sucked them.

Tracie said, "Wow, Mom... Holy- Keep going... Don't stop."

I glanced up from her bosom with a crazy cross-eyed look. I noticed the camera, looked straight at it, didn't care, and returned to feasting on my stepdaughter's tits. I went even more frantic, like I'd been waiting years to get my hands and lips on those young breasts. I squeezed them, licked them, sucked them, rubbed my face on them. I was making insane, breathy sounds like some kind of starving animal.

I watched this unbelievable video with both my hands clamped over my mouth. I begged god for it to be a nightmare.

Tracie said, "Here's the best part."

In the video, my daughter looked up, directly at the camera, wincing from my ongoing frenzy on her boobs. She had a painfully sad look on her face. She twitched as I sucked and licked away. Tracie whimpered tearfully to the camera, "Why does she make me do this every night?"

The shock nearly knocked me off my dining room chair.

"Tracie! Why did you say that? I didn't make you do that! It- it was your idea! I was too drunk to know better! You tricked me into it! I swear on my life that never happened before!"

She confidently put her phone into her pocket. She said, "Here's the thing, Mom. When I edit this clip and cut out the first part, no one in the world will believe you. All they'll see is me, crying about what you make me do."

My stomach fell through the floor, taking my heart with it. "Tracie... You wouldn't."

She said, "You know, last night, I was laying in bed afterward. I was really close to deleting this video. I mean, it's so weird, right? So extreme. But then I decided this was just what I needed. Cuz, yeah, Mom, I would hate for anyone else to see this, for sure. I'm sure you would hate it way more. But that's what you're dealing with now. It just might come to that."

All the hairs on my body stood up in alarm. "Tracie, why?"

"Oh, why, Mom? You're asking why? Because you're a mess! You used to be the best mom, but ever since you and Dad broke up, you've been getting worse and worse. This winter- You just- You're not my mother anymore. But you're going to stop drinking

today

. And from now on, you'll be doing everything I tell you to do, unless you want people to see that video. Understand? Or are you too hung over to think straight?"

"I- I'll just say it's fake! You can see how drunk I am. Anyone would- I..."

"Oh, Mom," she laughed, pulling her phone out again. "Did you want to watch some more? 'Cause this video goes on and on. My nipples are actually a little raw this morning, seriously." She tapped at her phone, threatening to play more.

My stomach cramped. "Stop," I said, shaking my head. "No, I don't want to see anymore."

"Didn't think so," Tracie said, putting the phone away. "Too bad. It actually gets kinda hot, to be honest. I think I look pretty good in it. And you, Mom, when did you get so good at sucking boobs? But anyway, I'm sure you get what's up. You better believe, I spent all morning making copies of this, backing them up in a bunch of places, secure online storage, encrypted, very protected, so there's no way you can make this not exist. Obviously, you really, really don't want anyone else in the world to see this, do you, Mom?"

"Tracie," I pleaded, breaking down in tears.

"I mean, wow, what if Dad saw that? I'm sure he'd be running to his lawyers, like, immediately, right? And oh my gosh, what if all the other moms started passing that clip around? Can you imagine what they would say about you? It would become, like, a legend."

I cried into my hands.

"So yeah," my stepdaughter said. "The first thing that's going to happen is I'm going to watch you pour every bottle of booze in this house down that kitchen drain. So get on it, Mom, right now."

"Please, honey," I pleaded, "you wouldn't really-"

"Now!" Tracie shouted, making my whole body jerk. "You can start with what's left of the vodka on the counter. You're going to pour out every drop. And if I ever catch you drinking again, someone's going to see that video, got it? Maybe lots of people. Maybe the whole world! That's the type of thing that would go totally viral online, you know? So get going! And I know you have hidden bottles, like in your bedroom and the garage. It's over!"

I was ready to throw up. My hands were trembling so much I could hardly control them. I didn't have a choice but to do whatever my daughter told me.

I got up, my head pounding, and made my way to the counter, holding onto it to steady myself. I carried the vodka bottle to the sink. I desperately wanted to drink down what was left in the bottle, but under my stepdaughter's harsh gaze I upended it, feeling like I was pouring away the only medicine that could take the pain away. I sniffed back on tears.

Tracie took the empty bottle from me and set it aside. She put her hands on the sides of my face and looked into my eyes. It was hard to look back at her.

"Mom, I want you to know, I'm doing this because I need you back. I want my mother back, do you understand? I love you."

I felt small and weak in her hands.

She said, "Now get the other bottles."

From that moment on, I learned that blackmail means living in fear. Every day, I prayed that I wouldn't give Tracie the slightest reason to be upset with me. Until I found a way to make her get rid of that video, I would do everything she asked. But I had no idea how far my daughter would make me go to keep her happy.