I’m not ashamed to be writing this. Not that my feelings have any relevance. I do what I’m told, and I know my place.
Who am I? Call me Therese. I’m forty-one years old, divorced, a mother of one (a son, Kyle, eighteen years old). I’m told that I’m fairly attractive, but I can’t see it. My hair is shoulder-length, mousey-brown, nondescript, my figure is, at best, unremarkable, and about the only noticeable feature I can claim is my blue eyes. I’ve been told they are very pretty.
A little historical perspective will probably help you to understand what I’m telling you in this “confession”, and why I’m writing it in the first place. I married right out of high school, only to learn in due course that the man I’d fallen for was an abusive, controlling bastard. I’ve never been at all assertive, so my husband was basically able to completely dominate every aspect of my life.
I was never the least bit happy with my marriage; the only real joy I ever felt during that long ordeal was connected to the birth and upbringing of my beautiful son.
And even that was poisoned by his bastard of a father. Steven (my husband) never seemed to care all that much about Kyle, but he did enjoy abusing me and humiliating me in front of him. The worst of it happened about six or seven months before he finally deserted us for good: he actually moved his girlfriend into our home, into my bed! Steven made it clear that if I had any objection, I could leave.... without my son.
So of course I stayed, and spent my tear-filled nights on the living room couch. This was when Kyle was nine years old, clearly aware enough to know that his mother had been reduced in status in the house. Steven even forbade me to display any anger or unhappiness in “Shelley”’s presence; he forced me to wait on her with the same humility I demonstrated toward him.
To make a long story short, he eventually tired of the charade of our marriage, and he and Shelley rode off into the sunset together, never to be seen by us again. I was glad to see the back of him, even as I berated myself for failing completely at the simple function of being married.
And in some ways, it’s as though he never left....
Kyle is definitely his father’s son. Steven taught by example, and Kyle learned at his dad’s knee that I can be dominated. I think my son lost all respect for me back when Steven openly gave Shelley my status and my bed. From that time on, I could never control him. Not that he was a bad kid; he wasn’t cruel, never got into trouble, apparently had no interest in booze or drugs. But he always made it clear to me that he did what he wanted, when he wanted, and my feelings on the matter were irrelevant to him.
But that’s not to say we had a bad life. Kyle grew up like any other normal boy, and I made his well-being my reason for living. My absolute, unconditional love for him made that seem completely natural, and I was for several years content to let the days and weeks and months go by in this way forever.
It was not to be.
Three weeks ago, on the eve of his graduation from high school, Kyle informed me that he had changed his mind about going to college here in town, and instead was planning to accept a job offer at a steel mill more than seventy miles away. I was horrified, both at the prospect of him moving away, and at the notion of him discontinuing his education.
Looking back, I wonder if there ever really was any job offer. I think my son may have concocted that tale because he knew precisely what my reaction to it would be. I believe that he knew that I’d do anything, anything at all, to make him reconsider his “plans”. He certainly wasn’t hesitant or shy about acquainting me with the one thing I could do to convince him to stay at home and continue going to school....
We were in the living room that day, the scene of my past humiliation at the hands of his long-gone father. I was in tears, begging and pleading with my son not to leave. Kyle was utterly composed, apparently unaffected by my highly-charged emotional outburst, and clearly determined to do what he wanted to do.
“Please, Honey,” I wept. “Think about what you’re doing. This job might seem like a good idea right now, but there’s no future in it. You’ll be doing exactly the same thing twenty years from now, at almost the same pay. Without a college education, you won’t have any chance to better your situation, or to make a better life for yourself, or for a family.”
“You don’t know that,” he replied calmly, full of teenaged confidence. “And besides, that’s not what’s really bothering you, and we both know it. You don’t want me to move out of this house, and out of your life. Either admit the truth about that, or this conversation is over.”
I knew he was right; it really was the one aspect of this whole situation that filled me with suffocating terror. He was my life, my reason for existing. I couldn’t begin to imagine what I’d do, who I’d be, without him. What could it hurt for me to admit that to him, and to myself?
Trying to regain some measure of composure, I wiped my eyes and nodded. “Alright. I agree, that is probably the most important part of it for me. Is that so wrong? I’m your mother. I love you. I want to take care of you and look after your needs so that you can concentrate on making a future for yourself. I.... I can’t bear the thought of losing you, not yet, anyway....”
Kyle gave me a hard look. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with that,” he said at last. “I’m a man now, and I’m tired of living in my mommy’s house, under my mommy’s wing. I need a place of my own. A place where I’m the boss. I want to live with a woman who’ll do what I say, when I say it.”
My tears started up again, largely because I knew, as cruel as his sentiments seemed to be, they were true. I didn’t know what else to say. “Please....” I begged, knowing my effort was wasted. “Isn’t there anything I can do to make you happy here with me?”
And then he smiled. It was a calculating expression, one that sent a chill of fear down my spine. I was afraid of what he’d say next, and it turned out that I wasn’t wrong to feel that way.
“Well,” he said through that smile. “There might be one thing you could do that would possibly –not definitely, you understand– but possibly make me change my mind. I won’t guarantee that I’ll stay even if you do it. I’ll only say that it would make staying with you and going to school a little more attractive a prospect.”
I recognized this ploy. Steven used to make me these kinds of “offers”. Either I gave him exactly what he wanted, in which case my situation got only marginally worse, or I denied him (never for long), and things got much worse indeed. As I stated earlier, Kyle was indeed his father’s son. And we both knew I was powerless to refuse him anything he really wanted.
I didn’t even bother to protest. What would’ve been the point?
“Please tell me,” I said through my continuing tears, steeling myself for whatever price my son would demand of me. “I’ll do anything you want.”
