You just never know. Even about your mother. I sure didn't.
Three weeks ago I was snooping around my mom's room, looking for goodies. I found a lipstick-sized vibrator under her mattress, and a folded, three-page printout of an IM session. I was shocked.
BrodskyBent: Hi there. 36 YO male here. You a hot MILF?
CurliQue35: I don't respond well to acronyms. But yes, I am Hot.
BrodskyBent: Hot as in say, Rip off my panties and ravish me completely?
CurliQue35: I'm not that hot! Go away!
BrodskyBent: LOL. Sorry, am really horny here. Please don't throw me out.
CurliQue35: I'll throw you to the TOS Police, how's that? <grin>
BrodskyBent: ANYTHING BUT THAT! So, are you married? Kids? Mortgaged up the whazoo?
CurliQue35: I always wondered how to spell whazoo. Anyway, you're not forgiven, so check your impertinence. Recently unmarried, two kids, a mortgage out my derriere that the ex is footing, a good job with an asshole boss. If this is you, John, my boss is an angel!
BrodskyBent: LOL. Not a John. (Not implying you're a you know what, either.) So, are you 35 as your screen name implies?
CurliQue35: 36 now. A year older and poorer. You know my marital status, what's yours?
BrodskyBent: I shall not lie. Attached white male, two kids, both in high school. I live in Towson. You live in Frederick.
CurliQue35: I know where I live. It's not an invitation.
BrodskyBent: I'm starting to feel unloved here. Maybe I should go pester another single mother.
CurliQue35: Sighhhhhhh. I'm sorry. You seem harmless enough. Maybe I'm just being hormonal.
BrodskyBent: Is that an admission of physical unapproachability?
CurliQue35: That's a description I've never heard before. But yes. Right in the middle of it.
BrodskyBent: That's too bad. My significant other's hormonal also.
CurliQue35: Poor baby. Is your significant aware of your cyber-wanderings?
BrodskyBent: No, and don't you tell her, either, LOL.
CurliQue35: My cyber-lips are sealed.
BrodskyBent: Thank you. So, are you available? Would you like a pic? It's the real me, and very recent.
CurliQue35: Available for what? I probably shouldn't ask that. Ok, send your pic. The worst I'll do is cyber-tear it up.
BrodskyBent: Gee thanks. Here it comes now. Do I get one in return?
CurliQue35: Yes. But don't ask for anything in the nude. I'll hang up on you if you ask for anything in the nude.
BrodskyBent: Nada. But that sounds like an admission of nude photography if I ever heard one, LOL.
CurliQue35: Smart ass. Hmmm. Not bad. I like a man in glasses.
BrodskyBent: I'm a little thin up top. That pic doesn't really show it, but I want to be honest.
CurliQue35: Honesty appreciated.
BrodskyBent: Wow. You're really good-looking. I'm intimidated now. Pretty soon I'll stat mystiping wurds and fallng all ovr miself.
CurliQue35: LOL. No man as attractive as you has problems with women.
BrodskyBent: Here that Bowser? She thinks I'm attractive. <Blush.>
CurliQue35: Bowser better be your dog, Sir. I don't like men who give their members names, especially not K-9 names.
BrodskyBent: Oops. It won't happen again.
CurliQue35: Okay. Listen, someone here. Have to go now, sorry.
BrodskyBent: Can I e-mail you?
CurliQue35: If you like. Bye.
It wasn't so much that Mom sounded like a ball-buster, which she certainly did, or that she was online in an AOL chat-room; what rocked me was that she doesn't
have
a computer. That meant the exchange either took place at her work, or here at home on either my brother's or my computer.
* * *
"Mom?"
"Yes, Sweetie." She looked up from the
Grands
biscuits she was arranging on a cookie sheet and faced me. Hair had escaped from her barrette and hung loose over her left cheek. She absently blew it away.
"Are you seeing someone?" I asked.
She blinked, then grinned sheepishly. "Well, sort of. Nothing serious, though. Why do you ask?"
I kept my tone level. "You didn't say anything about it. Usually you let me know first." I was still touchy about Dad and reproach tinged my voice. I felt a sting of tears. Shit, Jenna, I thought, stop that shit.
She sighed and wiped her hands on a dish-towel. "Honey, I'm not going out with him. So far, it's only e-mail and a little bit of chat." Her grin grew embarrassed "Or am I too old for that?"
"Mom!" I complained, but felt better all the same. "Do you really like him?"
She half-shrugged, half-nodded. "Sort of. I can't really tell. I don't understand the situation yet."
What's to understand?
I wondered.
He wants to ball you.
I asked, "Is he married?"
She sighed again. "Jenna."
"Mom!" I cried, and ran upstairs to my room.
* * *
I know crying is stupid. I'm eighteen years old, and old enough to know better, but I miss Dad and I want it back to normal. Even if "normal" was fighting all the time and throwing things around their bedroom and Dad hitting Mom once and cheating on her at least twice. As a child you tend to forget those things--or at least to ignore them. My brother distrusts my dad and worships the ground Mom walks on. It's the opposite for me, as it is with all my friends who've been through a divorce. Sons side with their mothers and daughters always side with their dads. Stupid, but true.
"You okay?" he asked.
It was ten o'clock, two days later and we were alone in the house. He was massaging my neck. My migraine was ferocious and I'd taken an Imitrex but it wasn't helping yet. "No," I said miserably.
"You want to talk about it?"
"No."
"Jenna."
I turned over and he removed his hands. James is my twin brother and my best friend. He spends hours with me when I'm in pain, but we have a problematic relationship and we have to be careful. "How can you defend her?" I demanded.
"Jenna," he repeated.
"Jimmy, she's a
whore
." He stiffened and I said apologetically, "Sorry. I shouldn't have said that."
He rolled me back onto my stomach, returned to the soft kneading of my neck muscles, making me groan in pain. It was a bad attack though, and he knew better than stop. "What makes her any different than you or me?" he asked.
"She's my mother."
"She's a female," he said. "Female's need attention. Or hadn't you noticed that, Jenna?"
"I'm not asking you to fuck me," I said belligerently.