"Mom? Are you home?" Max called, closing the front door of the house behind him. He waited for a response.
The silence said no.
"Dad? You still at the cigarette store?" Again, he waited for a response.
The silence said yes.
"Well, that answers that," he said, running a hand through his sandy-blond hair. His mom had been on him to get it cut for a few weeks now, especially since it began falling past his ears. He set his backpack on the floor beside the front door. He'd grab it later for homework anyway. "Guess I've got the run of the place."
First thing he needed was food. Dealing with school or work always left him ravenous. From the entrance, he walked past the living room on his right, complete with a teal faux-leather couch, coffee table, family photos on the wall, and a large flat-screen TV.
In the kitchen, Max set his sights on the fridge, hoping against hope that a banquet feast had materialized since he left the house that morning. Upon opening the door, and feeling the burst of cool air against his face, he was disappointed to find that there was not, in fact, a Beauty and the Beast style buffet set up inside.
Instead, he grabbed some lunch meat and opted for a sandwich. Working his alchemy, Max combined bread, meat, lettuce, mayo, mustard, and a pickle into a veritable feast fit for any 19-year-old king. After all, his 6'2" build required a great deal of calories to keep going.
Sandwich in mouth, Max turned away from the counter and walked past the dinner table set up against the far corner away from the kitchen. Two orange prescription bottles sat by themselves, with a note nearby. He'd been so hungry, he hadn't even noticed them when he walked in.
Max picked up the note and recognized his mom's handwriting. "Max, the new Rx finally got approved. Thank God for Parvati. Once daily. - Love you, Mom."
For the last few years, Dr. Anika Parvati had been their family doctor, ever since his original doctor, Dr. Aarons, had retired to the Florida Keys. And even though his mom was an attorney with her own firm, anxiety had been an issue that ran in their family. Max's prior medication's effectiveness slowly waned, so Dr. Parvati had been reading up on a new one hitting the market. Due to how unproven the medicine was, their insurance had gunked up the works in approving it.
Bottle in hand, Max read the label.
"Johnson, Maxamillian. Intrusivan. 60 mg. Take one capsule by mouth one time daily."
Easy enough. Next to his was the bottle belonging to his mom, Holly. When they talked about it, she always said, "Kiddo, you took almost everything from my side. You got the brains, the looks, and the anxiety. The whole kit and caboodle. Just remember to thank me first at your Oscar speech."
"What about Sarah?" Max had asked, inquiring about his older sister. At 23, she wasn't exactly a black sheep, but several years prior, she had moved out to parts unknown.
Whenever Sarah was brought up, his mom always got the same look on her face. She would smile with motherly warmth, which mostly covered up a deep sadness. Mostly.
"Sarah's kit and caboodle got its own entire kit and caboodle. She knows she can talk to me any time, wherever she is, and that she's always welcome home."
Max looked at the orange bottle in his hand. No time like the present. He popped it in his mouth and went back to the fridge for a bottle of water. Swallowing, Max stretched his arms out to his sides. "All right, Instrusivan. Do your worst."
Alone in the house for the next several hours, Max finished his homework, searched for any available jobs online, hoping to escape his wretched retail job, and stayed up to date on the news of the day. Usually at the end, alone in his room, he'd reward himself with some porn and quick jerk off, but he wasn't feeling it today, and had learned forcing it was never fun.
Around 7:30, he realized he was still in regular clothes. Quickly discarding those for pajamas, which tonight was an old black T-shirt sporting a faded graphic of a cartoon he used to watch as a kid, and plaid red pajama pants.
Just before throwing the shirt over his head, he stood in front of his wall mirror to admire his handiwork. Several years in the gym had earned him a toned build. Nothing jacked or bodybuilder-like, but enough to get a few looks whenever he was at the beach with his friends or his mom. Pronounced chest and biceps, along with a healthy six-pack, which led downwards to a faint Adonis belt V-shape.
God, he needed a girlfriend. Single for six months, which at his age might as well have been an eternity. His prior relationship had ended suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere. He thought everything with Jess Mills was going great, right up until the moment it wasn't. And when she ended it, so began a grueling three months of pent-up sexual frustration.
Shortly after that, the prescription he and his mom took for anxiety began to cease full effectiveness, which was when Parvati told them about a new one she'd read up on. She'd been fighting with the insurance company ever since.
The three months following that were their own picnic in the rain, and fighting with his own brain took center stage, pushing away any sexual frustrations he'd been dealing with.
From outside Max's room, a door opened and closed. Garage door. Mom's home, he thought. Time to not be naked anymore. He threw his pajamas on and went to greet his mom.
"Long day?" he called out from the hallway.
"Oh, my God," Holly responded, irritated. "Sometimes I just wish I could tell the whole damn firm exactly what I thought of them without imploding it all immediately after." Her eyes grew big and she raised her hands to the side of her face and shook them.
"Hard to do when your name is on the door," Max said.
"It really is, kiddo," his mom grumbled, pulling out the hair tie keeping her blonde ponytail in place. Without it, her golden hair fell down to just past her shoulders, its natural waves accentuated by the day-long hair tie.
She wore a flowing white blouse to the office today, tucked into a tight black pencil skirt extending to just above her knees. At 42, Holly maintained her tight 5'6" figure through the years in much the same way as her son. Learning that exercise was a natural anti-anxiety and antidepressant, the two of them had leapt into it.
Her blue eyes were tired, with the barest traces of crow's feet creeping through. Two children, an absent husband, and law school would do that to anyone. She was attractive, of course, Max knew that much, despite her being his mom. Beautiful, even. And aside from stepmom and MILF porn being some of his favorites, he'd never looked at her in any untoward way, with the exception of a few peeks down her looser pajama shirts over the years when she'd bent over right in front of him.
"Did you see my note?" she asked.
"Sure did."
"Did you take once daily?"
"Sure did."
"I knew I could count on you."
"What about you?"
Holly sighed. "I'll take it with dinner. I won't lie, kiddo. I am dead tired. Takeout Thai?"
"Takeout Thai," Max said with a small fist pump.
"Great. You order the usual smorgasbord. I'll grab pajamas and wine."
A quick phone call and 35 to 45 minutes later, they laid out a diverse feast before them on the coffee table in the living room. Max scooped some pad thai onto his plate, then grabbed a spring roll. As he scarfed it down with the energy of a hungry wolf, Holly sat down beside him on the teal couch, wine glass in hand.
"Mom, this is really good."
Holly laughed as she knocked back her once-daily Intrusivan. Not swallowing yet, she crooked her head toward her son. "Worked all day on it," she said, sounding like her mouth was full of marbles.
She had tied her hair up in a sloppy bun over her head in a fashion that embarrasses women yet mesmerizes men. Her oversized gray sweatshirt threatened to swallow her whole, draping over her tight black yoga pants. It amused Max when he realized it was the pajamafied version of her work clothes that day.
"So what are we watching with our feast?" Holly asked.
"There's that new Netflix show with the lawyer who gets turned into a goat," Max said.
She frowned and shook her head. "Pass."
