Logotherapy 3: Holy Communion.
All characters in this story are over eighteen.
Part 3 of Logotherapy.
Re-cap: Son returns home from college to fall in love with his mother and devise secret methods for watching her have sex with his father, fueling his already lit Oedipal desires.
Logotherapy Part 3:
To the best of my knowledge, these are all true stories. I left out names and changed locations only when they may be too indicative of identity.
It will later turn out that my dad had a second life outside a prominent Southern town. Again, it was the 80's, and there was no way to track anybody. I remember him trying to rule our world through a pay phone while away on his extended "business trips."
I hated his late-night phone calls.
The old charmer would call late at night, clearly after a few drinks, and God knows why--probably just to make himself feel better.
But at least a phone call meant he wasn't coming home unannounced in the middle of the night and getting past my systems for being alert to his intrusion into my mother's sacred chamber.
But, eventually, when he tired of his philandering, he would come home again, triggering my nighttime secret-stealth rituals.
The nights he was home always took the same tone: Mom made dinner while he watched the news.
I can see now that he consistently tried to guide the conversation to worldly events, to avoid actual conversation and actual stories of personal connection since that would lead to sharing facts about his life that could reveal his secret affairs. So, the conversation was always shallow, and the more he drank, the more sexual his innuendo would become.
It took an iron will and Academy-award-style acting, but I restrained my resentments.
I laughed and played along--anything not to interrupt the flow of events that led to watching them have sex tonight.
Even though I did feel deep pangs of anger against him, I knew that demonstrating it would not change their marriage, and my horniness was raging, so I certainly could not do anything that would jeopardize my chance for a private sex show with the woman I masturbate to every day.
I was helpless before the sexual drive that surged through me.
I could feel waves flow over me, like going over a hill on a roller coaster. In my twenties, I would call the overwhelming lust that seemed to overtake me every few weeks my "private hurricane." Today, I refer to it as the Dionysian drive--just as nature cannot repress the oncoming of spring; she welcomes it; the surge of life force ran through me, too, as a blind will before whom I was helpless.
At some point, when it felt appropriate, I said I was heading up "to read" for a bit. As I had learned to do, I turned on the outside floodlight and made my way to my room.
Mom, too, said her goodnights, went to her room, shutting the door behind her.
Eventually, I heard the TV turn off. I knew this was it. (The TV blared all night when he passed out in the Lazy Boy). He ascended the stairs, but the more he drank, the less careful his footsteps were, so my senses were quickly alerted.
Like before, he shut my door, entered my mom's room, and closed and locked the door behind him. The pace of his walk indicated his intentions. He was on a mission.
I stood behind my door and slowly cracked it open, trying to open it a millimeter at a time.
Like a ninja, I studied intently for any signs that they were aware of my actions.
Hearing their muffled voices and whispers was the best way to know I wasn't about to be discovered by them abruptly leaving the room.
If I could hear them whispering, I knew they were still in their room and not out about to emerge into the hall and bump into me.
After what seemed like an eternity, I opened my door fully.
Since the last time I spied on them, I had practiced my leap from the threshold of my door on a diagonal of about four feet to the threshold of the bathroom door. It worked. Total stealth achieved.
Once in the bathroom, I knew I was safe because it was tile and did not creak like the wooden hallway.
I went through the adjoining shower and hoped the bathroom doors would be open to see their actions thoroughly.
Their door was halfway ajar, just enough that I could see into their bedroom and at least the top quarter of the bed. My view was perfect: the floodlights lit up, and the door opened.
It seemed the stars were all aligned.
I took my place in the shower behind the curtain and stood on the rubber mat in the dark corner of the room.
From my stealth vantage point, I could see directly into their bedroom and hear them much more clearly.
At the time, I thought that what I was seeing was a struggle, like he was dominating her, forcing her to do things she didn't want to do.
All I could see was him holding her hands down over her head, but their bodies were beneath the sheets, so I couldn't make out what was happening.
I could hear her whispering something under her breath. Was she saying "no, no, no"? I couldn't be sure.
My heart filled with guilt and anger, and I didn't know if I was supposed to run in there and throw him off or call the police. But something in me always stops me, thank god!
He was forcing the love of my life to be his sexual object.
When you're young, you don't understand the context of what's transpiring between two people.
