Chapter 58
Heather's Tales -- Part 3
It was becoming harder for Heather to keep her past out of her current life. That became all too obvious Sunday when she had dropped off a load of clean clothing in her son's apartment above the garage. It wasn't that she was prying, either. Heather always gave her son's room a quick once over when she dropped off his laundry. Usually she picked up dirty clothing or retrieved dishes. She wasn't his house-keeper, and didn't hound him about keeping his rooms neat and tidy. But she was his mother and tended to look in on him and his well-being. Nothing wrong with that. However, the DVD she found sitting on the desk he used as an entertainment center had grabbed her attention. The title was all too familiar to her. It was one of hers. One of the movies she had made during her career in the porn industry. And it wasn't a purchased copy, either. It was a rental. Which means that the video store must have several copies, if not of only this one but quite possibly of many of her movies, she realized as she held the disc. It wasn't that she was ashamed of what she had done, but she didn't need the aggravations that came along with that history, not now, not in Regal Bay, where she was hoping to live a normal, peaceful life. Then again, what was normal about having a married woman for a girl-friend, screwing around with half of her real estate clients, not to mention a few of those who do work for her. Hell, she often wondered if she was getting more sex now than she ever did in Hollywood.
Heather sat on the edge of Andy's bed with the DVD in her hand;
Heather and the High Plains Hunks
was the title. It had been a knock-off of Clint Eastwood's
High Plains Drifter
obviously, with Heather as "The Woman with no Name", saving the townsfolk from three bandits by fucking them silly and then locking them away. Along the way, she also beds the mayor and his wife, a midget sheriff, the local madam and her best whore (in a lesbian scene that won her an award that year for best girl on girl scene), and a four way with three of the town's grateful merchants to end the movie. It had been one of the first movies she had done that carried her name in the title. It was also the first that she had begun to make any significant money on the sales of, having renegotiated her contract prior. Just one of seventeen she had made with her name in the title, which included the
Heather's Honeymoon
trilogy as well as
Heather Does the President
and
Heather Does Congress
. The planned
Heather Does the Supreme Court
sadly never got made, however, and shortly thereafter Heather McCoy left the business.
Pushing those memories aside, the domesticated Heather McCoy, real estate agent, gave her cell phone a check, noted the time and that she had no messages, and started for the door. She no sooner reached for the knob than the door pulled open and Andy walked in.
"Shit! Mom!" he barked, startled at her being just beyond his door. "What the hell? You about gave me a heart attack."
"I brought your clean clothes up," she told him. She looked at the DVD still in her hand and said, "I discovered this sitting on your desk." She handed it to Andy with a hint of a grin on her face. "I don't need to ask, do I? And I'm sure you have questions. What I want to know is how long have you known?"
Andy pushed past his mother into his garage-attic apartment. "This isn't fair, you know. We agreed that you wouldn't pry into my life, especially going through my stuff up here." Andy went to the desk and quickly opened and then closed a couple of the drawers. Next, he checked the computer, to see if she had gotten into it. Heather hadn't even thought about that, not until she saw him check it.
"I wasn't prying, Andy," she defended. "It was sitting out, and how could I not recognize it?" She came up to stand behind him, and Andy quickly shut the computer screen off and turned to face her.
"It's my private life, my privacy. And we agreed you wouldn't do this." Andy again pushed past her, headed for the small kitchenette where he pulled a soda from the refrigerator. He didn't offer her one. "I have my life and you have yours," he added before gulping some of the Mountain Dew down. "I pay you rent to live here, remember."
"I know you do," she agreed. "And it would seem that you know more about my life now than I do of yours," she said. Heather tried to assure her son, "Nothing has changed, Andy. There's absolutely nothing was wrong with your watching porn in the privacy of your own place. Most young men your age do it, I know." He seemed to blush a little, though he wasn't facing her. "It is just that if you're watching porn starring your own mother, that bothers me," she added. And if it wasn't for the fact that Heather was equally aware of his voyeurism, of his watching her with Quinn and quite possibly others she brought home on occasion, she might have been able to overlook it. Instead, she wondered if it wasn't so much the porn but watching her that was exciting her son.
"Mom, would you just please, get out," Andy growled.
"I want to talk about this with you, Andy," she pleaded, but he wasn't having any of it. Andy didn't respond, other than to glare angrily at her. Feeling the icy glare of her son, Heather nodded. "I'll leave you alone."
Heather left her son's apartment and headed down the stairs quickly. She pushed on through the side door into the house and went to the kitchen where she poured herself a glass of wine. It was Sunday afternoon, and even though she had little to do, she wanted to get out of the house, away from her son, and think. The weather was nice and the sun warm, so she grabbed up her beach bag and headed out.
After enjoying a long afternoon under the early autumn sun, Heather stopped in at a couple of the boardwalk shops. It was the last weekend that many would be open, with the beachfront getting used less as the days cooled more. Heather talked with a couple of her friends that she ran into, but nothing personal. They weren't that close of friends. She didn't return home until it was getting dark. She went straight up to her bedroom, hoping to avoid her son. After a quick shower, Heather made herself a light dinner and settled into the deep sofa to watch an episode of
NCIS-Los Angeles.
She enjoyed the show, having a personal connection with LL Cool Jay from years ago. Watching him often made her recall those years of her life, when she ran with real actors and actresses across Hollywood. She knew that had she only slept with the right agents or producers, she might have taken a different path and become a star. With those regrets again dancing lightly in her mind, Heather went to bed shortly before midnight.
Monday morning was busy, with several clients to meet, including one well out towards Hanover, a small interstate exit town a half an hour drive out of Regal Bay that Frank Vaughn had managed to pick up a listing in. Heather kept her mind on her work, and by day's end she had completed one sale that had been pending, and got two others well on the way. All in all, it had been a profitable Monday for her.
Twice during the day, she had texted her son, first to ask if he planned to have dinner with her that evening, as was their usual custom for Mondays, and then to remind him to call the dentist and make an appointment to have his recently chipped tooth checked. The realization that she was a mature mother, with a sexually active young man for a son, weighed heavily on her as she drove home that evening. More than once that day she wanted to give Quinn Vincent, or Cynthia Price, a call. She needed to get an opinion on her Andy-issue. Instead, she kept it to herself, at least until she had a talk with her son.
Andy wasn't home when she arrived, his Jetta not parked in its usual spot, and Heather headed in. After a quick shower, Heather pulled on her running shorts and a "Love Pink" hoody sweater. She had a stack of towels and washcloths for Andy in the laundry room that needed to be delivered to his bathroom. Pausing with the stack in hand, she shrugged and headed for the garage.
Andy's door was locked, as it nearly always was, but the spare key was where it should be and Heather let herself in. She put away the towels in his small bathroom and started out when she noticed the cover on a magazine tucked onto a shelf above the toilet. She pulled it free and read "Nudist Retreat -- Monthly". It was bend and creased, and looked well read. The cover depicted three individuals, all completely naked standing in a sun-lit meadow. They could easily be a family, the older couple with a younger woman standing between them. They looked like mother-father-daughter, and the caption below their sandaled feet read "Welcome; the Jacobson Family". Heather flipped through, noting that much of the magazine was pictures taken of people of various ages, mostly naked, playing at a nature camp in the woods somewhere. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, all naked and unashamed. Ages could easily have ranged from mid to late teens, up to late seventies for some.
"Where the hell did he pick this up?" Heather looked the cover over, and then opened it to the inside front page. "And where in the world is this place?" Heather muttered as she returned to the cover. It didn't say where, although the inside cover did mention a web-site "For more information". She also took note of the date of the magazine. It was nearly two years old. "Where did you get this from, I wonder? And why?" she asked the empty room. She started to replace the magazine but changed her mind. Instead, she rolled it up and took it with her back to the house. It very well could be the key she needed to unlock her son's guarded shell.
Andy arrived at home shortly before seven, and informed his mother that he had had to run a couple of errands after work. Without bringing up her discovery, Heather and Andy had a quiet dinner of spaghetti and garlic bread. She had white wine. He had his usual Mountain Dew. They talked little other than asking about the other's day at work. Andy had decided to take a semester off from school after his freshman year at Regal Bay University and was working as a grounds keeper's assistant at the resort. He needed a shower after a long day of mowing and trimming, but with dinner ready when he came in, he put it off until after.
