You just never know. Even about your mother. I sure didn't.
Three weeks ago I was snooping around my mom's room, looking for goodies. I found a lipstick-sized vibrator under her mattress, and a folded, three-page printout of an IM session. I was shocked.
BrodskyBent: Hi there. 36 YO male here. You a hot MILF?
CurliQue35: I don't respond well to acronyms. But yes, I am Hot.
BrodskyBent: Hot as in say, Rip off my panties and ravish me completely?
CurliQue35: I'm not that hot! Go away!
BrodskyBent: LOL. Sorry, am really horny here. Please don't throw me out.
CurliQue35: I'll throw you to the TOS Police, how's that? <grin>
BrodskyBent: ANYTHING BUT THAT! So, are you married? Kids? Mortgaged up the whazoo?
CurliQue35: I always wondered how to spell whazoo. Anyway, you're not forgiven, so check your impertinence. Recently unmarried, two kids, a mortgage out my derriere that the ex is footing, a good job with an asshole boss. If this is you, John, my boss is an angel!
BrodskyBent: LOL. Not a John. (Not implying you're a you know what, either.) So, are you 35 as your screen name implies?
CurliQue35: 36 now. A year older and poorer. You know my marital status, what's yours?
BrodskyBent: I shall not lie. Attached white male, two kids, both in high school. I live in Towson. You live in Frederick.
CurliQue35: I know where I live. It's not an invitation.
BrodskyBent: I'm starting to feel unloved here. Maybe I should go pester another single mother.
CurliQue35: Sighhhhhhh. I'm sorry. You seem harmless enough. Maybe I'm just being hormonal.
BrodskyBent: Is that an admission of physical unapproachability?
CurliQue35: That's a description I've never heard before. But yes. Right in the middle of it.
BrodskyBent: That's too bad. My significant other's hormonal also.
CurliQue35: Poor baby. Is your significant aware of your cyber-wanderings?
BrodskyBent: No, and don't you tell her, either, LOL.
CurliQue35: My cyber-lips are sealed.
BrodskyBent: Thank you. So, are you available? Would you like a pic? It's the real me, and very recent.
CurliQue35: Available for what? I probably shouldn't ask that. Ok, send your pic. The worst I'll do is cyber-tear it up.
BrodskyBent: Gee thanks. Here it comes now. Do I get one in return?
CurliQue35: Yes. But don't ask for anything in the nude. I'll hang up on you if you ask for anything in the nude.
BrodskyBent: Nada. But that sounds like an admission of nude photography if I ever heard one, LOL.
CurliQue35: Smart ass. Hmmm. Not bad. I like a man in glasses.
BrodskyBent: I'm a little thin up top. That pic doesn't really show it, but I want to be honest.
CurliQue35: Honesty appreciated.
BrodskyBent: Wow. You're really good-looking. I'm intimidated now. Pretty soon I'll stat mystiping wurds and fallng all ovr miself.
CurliQue35: LOL. No man as attractive as you has problems with women.
BrodskyBent: Here that Bowser? She thinks I'm attractive. <Blush.>
CurliQue35: Bowser better be your dog, Sir. I don't like men who give their members names, especially not K-9 names.
BrodskyBent: Oops. It won't happen again.
CurliQue35: Okay. Listen, someone here. Have to go now, sorry.
BrodskyBent: Can I e-mail you?
CurliQue35: If you like. Bye.
It wasn't so much that Mom sounded like a ball-buster, which she certainly did, or that she was online in an AOL chat-room; what rocked me was that she doesn't
have
a computer. That meant the exchange either took place at her work, or here at home on either my brother's or my computer.
* * *
"Mom?"
"Yes, Sweetie." She looked up from the
Grands
biscuits she was arranging on a cookie sheet and faced me. Hair had escaped from her barrette and hung loose over her left cheek. She absently blew it away.
"Are you seeing someone?" I asked.
She blinked, then grinned sheepishly. "Well, sort of. Nothing serious, though. Why do you ask?"
I kept my tone level. "You didn't say anything about it. Usually you let me know first." I was still touchy about Dad and reproach tinged my voice. I felt a sting of tears. Shit, Jenna, I thought, stop that shit.
She sighed and wiped her hands on a dish-towel. "Honey, I'm not going out with him. So far, it's only e-mail and a little bit of chat." Her grin grew embarrassed "Or am I too old for that?"
"Mom!" I complained, but felt better all the same. "Do you really like him?"
She half-shrugged, half-nodded. "Sort of. I can't really tell. I don't understand the situation yet."
What's to understand?
I wondered.
He wants to ball you.
I asked, "Is he married?"
She sighed again. "Jenna."
"Mom!" I cried, and ran upstairs to my room.
* * *
I know crying is stupid. I'm eighteen years old, and old enough to know better, but I miss Dad and I want it back to normal. Even if "normal" was fighting all the time and throwing things around their bedroom and Dad hitting Mom once and cheating on her at least twice. As a child you tend to forget those things--or at least to ignore them. My brother distrusts my dad and worships the ground Mom walks on. It's the opposite for me, as it is with all my friends who've been through a divorce. Sons side with their mothers and daughters always side with their dads. Stupid, but true.
"You okay?" he asked.
It was ten o'clock, two days later and we were alone in the house. He was massaging my neck. My migraine was ferocious and I'd taken an Imitrex but it wasn't helping yet. "No," I said miserably.
"You want to talk about it?"
"No."
"Jenna."
I turned over and he removed his hands. James is my twin brother and my best friend. He spends hours with me when I'm in pain, but we have a problematic relationship and we have to be careful. "How can you defend her?" I demanded.
"Jenna," he repeated.
"Jimmy, she's a
whore
." He stiffened and I said apologetically, "Sorry. I shouldn't have said that."
He rolled me back onto my stomach, returned to the soft kneading of my neck muscles, making me groan in pain. It was a bad attack though, and he knew better than stop. "What makes her any different than you or me?" he asked.
"She's my mother."
"She's a female," he said. "Female's need attention. Or hadn't you noticed that, Jenna?"
"I'm not asking you to fuck me," I said belligerently.
"I'm not offering to."
I was experiencing a more intense desire for James than I'd felt in a long, long time. We had never had sex, never really even come close, but there was always that understanding that we
could
. "Sorry. I shouldn't have said that," I repeated.
"It's okay. Tell me exactly what she said."
I related the gist of the transcript, then told him to go get it. It was still there, or at least it had been that afternoon. He settled down to read it. "Seems pretty innocent to me."
"It's what they're
not
saying," I complained.
He laughed. "How can you
not
say something in an IM. It's hard enough not to be misunderstood. Besides, this is tame compared to what I write."
"You're not thirty-seven with two kids."
"Thirty-six," he corrected. "And her two kids are grown."
"Stop defending her."
He massaged my shoulders, then moved to my shoulder blades, which didn't hurt so much, then to my spine, which did. I moaned appreciatively. The Imitrex was finally kicking in.
"Take off my top," I said. I raised enough for him to pull it over my head. I reached behind with my right hand and released my bra strap. It popped loose to both sides. He stopped rubbing.
"It's fine," I said. "I'm not trying to seduce you." I was comfortable with this level of undress as long as I hurt this bad. Problem was, I didn't hurt this bad. In fact, the headache was leaving like a burning-off mist.
"We should stop," he said.
"Don't. Please." Because he deserved it, I told the truth. "I shouldn't be letting you do this, but I want you to, because I like it. Just rub me until my headache's gone, and I'll button back up. Okay?"
"Okay." He straddled my buttocks and laid it on with both hands, giving me a tremendous massage. Two or three minutes into it he developed a tremendous erection, and that was fine too. I was certainly aroused myself.
"James?"
"Uh-huh."
"Do you think we ever will?"
He breathed heavily through his open mouth. "I'm damned-near ready to now, Jenn. You're killing me."
I grinned into the mattress. "A girl should have the upper hand with her brother."
I expected a deserved smack on the rear, but it didn't come. His hands worked the small of my back, went up to my neck again, then slid down along my sides.
"James?"
"Uh-huh."
"I want to have sex with you."
"I want to have sex with you too."
"Should we?"
He rested on my butt. His hands were on his thighs. Both of us knew I wanted it because of Mom. "Not like this," he said.
I reached back, found the ends of my bra strap and hooked them up. He climbed off and handed my top, which I put on. I had never felt so frustrated in my life. "Thank you," I said, standing on tiptoe and kissing him on the cheek. "You're a good brother."
"Don't mention it." He whacked my butt so hard I yelped.
* * *
Three days later, I again raided my mother's bedroom. Beneath the mattress was a four page transcript. I read nervously.
