I stepped out of my dress and struggled to find room to pull my shoes off in the tiny hotel bathroom. Didn't matter. I was high on sunshine and ocean breezes after a hard day of vacationing. It was a shame the sun had to set eventually, but a water-side dinner with my brothers and my son had allowed me to maintain a glow throughout the evening, and I was thoroughly exhausted and ready to embrace sleep. And do it all over again the next day. The start of the vacation had been perfect, and my only regret was that finding a few minutes to relax with my massager was going to be difficult before sleep with my son sharing the room.
I remembered my son's words to me earlier in the day as we sat by the pool.
"Mom," he'd said under his breath so that my brothers or nieces who were nearby couldn't have heard. "You might want to set up a spa trip or something for this evening. It looks like I'm going to have to take care of business tonight."
"What is that supposed to mean?" I asked, although I knew exactly what it meant, and took another long sip from my margarita.
"I might have to take care of business," he repeated, and made an extremely subtle jerking off motion with his hand. He smiled at me before taking another drink from his own margarita.
"You do what you need to do on your side of the room," I laughed. His side of the room vs my side of the room was a running joke we'd had since checking in at the resort, because the room was so tiny our queen-sized beds were almost on top of each other. "And just ignore what goes on on my side," I said, making sure he saw me tracking a young man in a speedo walking past our chairs.
Derrick, my son, had stopped coming on family vacations years ago, but after his dad passed away our relationship changed. We got a lot closer, somehow, and even if we still didn't see each other on a day-to-day basis we started getting together a few times a month for a movie or just dinner at my house. I wasn't surprised, frankly, when he expressed interest in coming on this trip, even though he had been only 17 the last time he and I and his father and sister had vacationed as a family. When he mentioned that a trip I'd been planning with my brothers to Florida sounded like it would be fun I'd invited him, and he accepted.
And then we showed up and found out that my brother Ed, who'd booked everything, had put us together in the smallest resort room I'd ever seen. I started feeling self-conscious looking in the mirror at what I'd brought to sleep in - just panties and a breezy pajama top. I had to position my long blonde hair just right in order to obscure my generous cleavage. It wouldn't be so bad once I got into my bed, but I had to parade past him in that get-up in order to get to the bed, and he'd already had a long day of barely-dressed women parading past him.
Which was what made me think of his "take care of business" comment.
"Oh, hey Mom," he said from his bed as I came out of the bathroom. I paused to lay my folded dress and shoes next to my suitcase, but out of the corner of my eye I saw him doing a lot of adjusting of the bedding on his side of the room. I quickly slipped under the covers of my own bed and saw that he'd been watching a movie I'd seen before.
"Do you want a night cap?" he asked, holding up an empty glass. I'd been drinking since we stepped off the plane this morning, although slowly, and saw no reason to stop until I was firmly in dream land.
"Are you having one? Sure, pour one more light one for your mother," I said. After pouring a modest amount of whiskey, he reached over the small nightstand and handed me the glass. "To Florida," I said raising it.
"To the Crawford clan and their family vacations," he said raising his.