The maid's daughter woke me, gently shaking my shoulder. "Phone, Thomas. Your mother."
I looked up at her, shielding my eyes from the sun that blazed in the sky directly behind her head. "Thanks Esmeralda." She smiled and handed me a cordless phone and walked back to the house.
I said "Hello, Mom."
"How are you, Dear? What's my favorite son doing to pass the time on a cold winter day?"
"Your 'only' son is lounging by the pool, talking to his favorite mother. It's 80 degrees here. What's up?"
"Thomas... There's no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it: Rob and I are getting a divorce."
I sat up in my deck chair. "Good," I said. "Great, in fact. Mom, I'm sorry if you're upset or having a hard time, but I have never liked Rob."
My mother married Rob Wallace when I was 22, four years or so after my father died aboard American Airlines Flight 11 when it crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Rob isn't a bad guy, really, but compared to my dad's open, boisterous, and loving personality, my step-father is a cold fish. I never got used to him, and since I was away at college when they married I never even had much time to try.
"I know," said Mom. "Rob is a good man and a good provider, but... I was alone and needed someone, and he wanted me, but marrying him was a mistake."
I stretched back out on the lounge chair. "How is he taking it, Mom?"
"Oh, all right. He's disappointed, but not devastated." She chuckled into the phone. "I don't think he's capable of being devastated; he just doesn't have the emotional range. That's part of the problem."
"Where are you going to live? Are you keeping the condo or is he?"
"We're selling it, and that's part of what I wanted to talk to you about. I was hoping that I could fly out to California and live with you for a while in that big mansion of yours."
I sat back up again. "Mom... It would be great to have you out here, really great."
"I sense a 'but' coming."
"Well... it might be better if we got you a place close by. Or there's a really nice little Ritz Carlton hotel near here. We could set you up in a suite there for as long as you like."
We could afford it, either one of us. I gifted $3 million each to Mom and my sister Tina a year ago.
Silence on the phone. Then, "You don't want me to stay with you?"
"Mom, I love you and nothing would make me happier than to have you live with me here, forever if you want. But there are some things you don't know about me."
"Like what?"
Shit, how to explain this... "I worked hard for years. In sixth grade I started working on my college resume. I took honors and advanced prep classes and studied hard and got straight A's. All my leftover time went into writing my video game."
"I remember all that, Thomas. We were very proud of you. I still am."
"When Dad died while I was at MIT, I just drove myself harder. Summa cum laude, BS and MS in engineering, my video game on the market for the PC and then the PS3, my hardware accelerator design sold to Sony."
"You've worked hard and been incredibly successful."
"Yup. I made millions through hard work, and then on top of that I win the California State Lottery this year through pure dumb luck."
"Thomas, what does this have to do with letting me stay with you?"
I thought about how to say it.
"All those years I was working at school and writing software and designing hardware, I missed out on things. Other kids were playing sports; I was doing homework. In college I had some acquaintances but didn't have enough time to really make friends. I didn't go to parties; didn't drink at all, in fact. I stayed in my room and worked on the computer."
I took a deep breath. "Mom... I was still a virgin at 23 when I left MIT."
"Oh my," said my mother. "Well... there's nothing wrong with that, Dear."
"Are you okay talking about this, Mom?"
"Certainly," she said. "We're both adults and I'm not a prude. And I'm your mother; you can talk to me about anything."
"Okay," I said. "I'll go on, then. When the money really started rolling in I realized that I didn't have to work so hard any more. I bought this place on the coast and hired some help: an accountant, a lawyer, a live-in maid who also cooks. Then when I won the lottery, it was like a message from God: 'Relax. Take some time off. Play a little.'"
"Well, that certainly sounds like good advice, Thomas. So are you playing?"
"As much as I can, Mom. In every way possible."
"What do you mean?" said Mom.
"I run and lift weights. I play basketball and touch football and ultimate Frisbee and I've taken up golf."
"You must be in very good shape."
"I have a live-in personal trainer now. She helps me work out and she's teaching me yoga and karate."
"She?" said Mom.
"Nela. She's kicks my ass, but she gives great massages. Not to mention that she's drop-dead gorgeous."
"Live-in maid, live-in trainer. So maybe you don't have enough room for me to stay with you?"
"No, we have plenty of room, Mom. It's just..." I hesitated. "It's just that I'm very hedonistic here. I'm naked a lot, for starters. I'm naked right now, getting some sun by the pool. Could you deal with that if you lived here?"
I could sense my mother blushing over the phone. "Well, Thomas, I haven't seen you nude for many years, but I don't think a little European sunbathing will bother me too much."
"Mom, it's more than that. I'm kind of a half-time nudist now. I'm nude almost all the time I'm in the backyard. I swim naked, jacuzzi naked. It's so private here that I can even be nude in the front yard too, if I want; I only have a couple of neighbors and they don't care. Naked yoga. Nude massages. Sometimes on hot days I never bother getting dressed at all."
"Naked meals?"
"Sometimes."
"But you'd cover up for your mother, wouldn't you?"
I sighed. "That's just it, Mom. I want you here, very much. I love you. But I don't want to change my lifestyle, not one bit. So if you live here with me, you'll have to get used to seeing me in the buff some of the time."
Long pause. Then, "I can do that, I think, Dear."
I said, "There's more, Mom. I'm not a virgin any more."
"Oh, my. Well, that's good, Dear. Do you have a girlfriend?"
I said, "Not exactly. But I have a lot of sex. Pretty much anytime I want. And anywhere I want, too. Indoors and outside. If you live here, you're going to see some of it."
Silence on the phone.
"Mom? Are you still there?"
"Yes, I'm here. I just... Who do you have sex with?"
"Well, Nela and I make love a lot. Neither one of us can get enough. But we're just friends. I've also gotten to know a lot of girls in the area, and some of them come over occasionally."
"More than one at a time?"
"Sometimes."
"Thomas."
"What? I'm having fun, for the first time in my life. I certainly don't want to stop."
Mom said, "Are you having sex with the maid, too?"
"No. She and her daughter are here from Mexico illegally, so it wouldn't be right for me to have a physical relationship with them. It would be like coercion, even if I wasn't trying that. How could they say no?"
"How old is her daughter?"
"Esmeralda? She's eighteen now."
"So she was what, sixteen when they came to work for you? What kind of mother lets her daughter live around a naked man who has sex in plain sight?"
"It's their choice. And I pay them well."
"Oh, Thomas," said Mom. "I'm coming out there to stay with you, if only to calm you down."
"Okay Mom," I said. "But remember, it's your choice, too. And I'm not planning to change any time soon. My house, my rules."
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I picked Mom up at LAX on a hot afternoon two weeks after her phone call. I hadn't seen her for nearly two years, and when she came through the entrance to baggage claim and smiled at me I almost started to tear up, I was so glad to see her. We hugged.
"Thomas, look at you! Tall and tan and fit and handsome. My God, the last time I saw you, you were pasty white from spending all your time hunched over that computer. California certainly agrees with you."
"You look great too, Mom, really excellent."
It was true. She had a beautiful face that was unmarked by age, and (I noticed for the first time) a killer body that felt firm under my hands as we hugged.
She smiled at my compliment. "Thank you, Dear. Careful diet, lots of exercise, and unlike you I stay out of the sun. If you spend as much time by the pool as you say, your skin will be getting all lined and creased in no time. All over," she said, blushing.
I had no comeback, so I said "Come on, let's get your bags and head for home."
I got her luggage into the M5 and we took off. It was a nice day so I stayed off the freeways and drove up the coast.
"It's so beautiful here," she said. "I can understand why you love Southern California."
"Yeah, it doesn't suck," I said. "Would you like to stop and get something to eat on the way? I know a lot of good places where we can get a quick lunch, if you're hungry."
"I'm a little hungry but they fed us on the plane," she said. "I can wait. And I really would like to get settled right away."
"Great," I said. I turned east to take the scenic route through the hills and canyons. "Juana can't wait to cook for you so this will work out fine. She's been shopping and loading up the larder with stuff to make your favorite recipes... at least, the ones I remember you used to like."
"Thank you, Dear, but I don't want to be a bother. I can eat whatever you eat."
I laughed. "Be careful about that. A lot of the time I eat this health crap that Nela feeds me: lumpy green juice and other stuff that I don't want to know the details of. She says it's good for my, ah, stamina."
Mom looked at me. "You mean your sexual stamina?"
"Yeah," I said, looking straight ahead.
"How many times a day do you have sex?"