My grandmother bequeathed me her nice little two bedroom home in a suburb of Raleigh. I couldn't get out of Charlotte fast enough. I had only been out of college for a year and had been lucky enough to land a spot upon graduation in a very large bank's management program. I had no trouble getting a transfer to a location that would allow me to live in grandma's old house and commute to work.
Things were starting to get hectic in my family's home in Charlotte. My father was in charge of the finances for one of the largest mega-churches in the south. A few months after I graduated college, men from the state's Attorney General's Office and the FBI started calling, paying visits to the church and even our home. It seems as if the pastor had been cooking the books, with my father's full cooperation. When my grandma passed and I was given the house, my dad insisted I sell it for the money and stay in Charlotte. My mother took me aside and said if I wanted the house, I should keep it. It was her mother who had died and it was my mother's childhood home I inherited.
I should say I never got along with my father. He became involved in that church when I was very young. It was his whole life. His family was really an afterthought. The church pastor was intensely charismatic. My father worshipped him more than the God the church supposedly was dedicated to. My father took no interest in the fact I was a straight A student or that I was a state champion amateur boxer. Only when I could be used as a prop to glorify himself in the eyes of the pastor, would he attempt to act the caring father.
My mother met my father at a church camp when they were in high school. They were both counselors. He was everything a southern girl from a strict Baptist family would want; a young man, apprenticed to his father's accounting firm, a good Christian from a respectable family. .. She couldn't say no when he proposed the night they graduated high school. They married that summer and by the fall, she was pregnant with me, her only child.
She really should have gone to college. She's much too smart, funny and vivacious to be a cookie cutter proper church wife. I get my athleticism, lust for life and general vibrancy from her. My father was a nebbish lackey, a born bootlicker. He and I couldn't be more different. My mother's married life was a constant struggle to suppress the fun and free woman she truly was in order to fit the mold of the important church official's spouse. She'd stifle a giggle while her peers would gasp in shock at a dirty joke. If a sexual situation appeared on the television, she'd hold the remote and keep it on the screen juuuust a bit longer than she could have before turning the channel.
My mother is really very attractive. Her marriage was the classic southern union based on family and social expectations and not the mutual attraction of physically and mentally compatible individuals. While my father is slight and slump-shouldered, my mother carried herself as the beautiful specimen she knew deep down she was. She understood too well her Christian duty as a wife was to be subservient to her twinkish husband. She was 5'5", brunette, walked with perfect posture that only enhanced her full c-cup breasts. She never wore anything revealing in public but you can only keep that kind of body only hidden to a point.
After a six month investigation, my father and the pastor plead guilty to federal fraud charges. My father was given a 15 year sentence while the pastor got 20. Of course, all of my father's assets were confiscated, including the house. As soon as I heard, I drove to Charlotte and brought my mom back to live with me in Raleigh. She literally had one suitcase worth of cloths. The feds took everything. My mom protested against staying with me, trying to argue how she would be a burden, etc., etc. I was having none of it. She was now a pariah in the only social circles she ever knew. She had no where to go and I loved her with all my heart. I convinced her to start life anew at age 42, back in the house she grew up in.
My place was ready for her to move in. When I first moved in, I had admittedly overspent by getting a king size bed for the master bedroom, a new living room set and a modern, extra-large tub for the master bath. I gave my mom the master bedroom while I took the single bed in the second bedroom.
She was understandably despondent for the first few weeks, having gone through the trauma of the investigation, the humiliation of the conviction and then the loss of the world she had known for all her adult life. I would come home from work and find her hurriedly trying to put herself together so I wouldn't know she had been crying all day. My heart broke for her and I would instinctively wrap my arms around her. This would start her crying all over again. She would only say, 'What am I gonna do, baby? What am I gonna do?' (She never called me by my name, always baby. She would only call me 'baby' and no one else. She referred to my father as 'Herbert'.)
I would gently 'shushhh' her and tell her everything is all right. It killed me to not see the light in her eyes. I knew her depression would only deepen if she sat around the house all day with nothing to do but watch tv and make my dinner. (Something she insisted on and which I did not complain about.) I thought she should at least take a class. I gave her a couple catalogs from local community colleges. She decided to work towards getting a nursing degree.
And so my mother slowly re-blossomed into the woman I knew in happier times. She took 2 classes a day during the week. She would come home, do her homework and have dinner ready by the time I came home. I had never stopped holding her, only now I did it when I came home and she'd run into my arms with a smile on her face. She was so eager to tell me about her day and ask me about mine. Seeing her excited about life made me so happy.
When I had interned for a bank's corporate office while in college, one of the vice presidents I worked for had gotten me into wine drinking. He was a connoisseur of the stuff and taught me some of the finer points of recognizing a good vintage. I had gotten into the practice of enjoying a glass or two after dinner, even before my mom moved in. Soon I had her enjoying a glass along with me. At first, she got tipsy very quickly, never having drank before. She would have a glass and be asleep 20 minutes later. It wasn't too long though before she was a delightful drinking companion.
One evening we were enjoying an after dinner glass when my cell phone buzzed on the coffee table. I looked down and read the text message from an ex-girlfriend. My mom said, 'Oh, who's that?'
'Just an ex.' I replied, 'She's looking for a booty call.'
My mom wrinkled her cute nose, 'What's a booty call.'
I decided to shake up her conservative sensibilities and have some fun, 'A booty call is when you ask a friend to get together for some.... you know.' I answered with a wink and a smile.
'You're joking, baby. That was not a booty call.' She smirked at me.
But indeed it was. I brought up the message and handed mom the phone. It read:
I miss all the ORGASMS you give me! Call me! <3 Karen.
My mother's face turned a deep red and her mouth dropped open. She didn't give me the lecture on dating 'whores' as I half-feared she would. Instead she was more curious as to the kind of relationships I had with this woman.
'Well mom, we saw each other just a few times, about a month or so before you came to Raleigh. I told her I wasn't interested in getting serious because I knew you would be moving in. And with the time I want to spend with you and my work, there wouldn't be room for a relationship.'
'Oh baby, I'm sorry...'
'No,' I interrupted her, 'I want nothing more than to be with you right now. I love you more than anyone in the world'
She smiled at me with a glint of moisture in her eyes, 'Thanks baby. Sooooo.. how did you get so good at giving orgasms?'
'Do you remember when I dated Kendra when I was a senior in high school? She stayed a virgin that whole year we were together. It was so important she save herself for marriage. '
'Good girl, sounds like your mother.' she teased.
'Yeah, well she was burning with sexual urges none the less. She loved my hands down her pants. Even better, she loved me licking her down there. I did it for hours. I really perfected my technique with her. She still tries to get together with me even though she's married with a kid.'
I suddenly felt panic shoot through me as I realized what just came out of my mouth. My mother was looking down at her second, almost gone, glass of chardonnay. She shook her head and giggle.
'I guess my baby wasn't the angel I though he was.'
'Aww, c'mon mom', glad she hadn't stormed out of the room in disgust, ' you remember being that age.'
'Yes, but I didn't have someone like you in my life, baby. Truth is, I've never had an orgasm.'
