It had been almost two months since I’d been home. At first, I’d tried to make it every weekend. School was only forty minutes away and I knew Mom needed the support. But after seven consecutive weeks of listening to her bitching and moaning about how miserable her life was, and bad mouthing Dad, I’d had enough.
Sure Dad probably deserved most of it. He had waited until the day I left for college, the last of us kids to leave the house, to surprise Mom with divorce papers, leaving that same day.
Admittedly, it wasn’t much of a surprise. It hadn’t been a loving home for more than a year and I’d heard the arguments, even when they tried to keep me out of it. Hell, my bedroom was right next to theirs and they weren’t very quiet when they got into it.
Mom accused Dad of cheating, which he denied. He accused Mom of being a frigid bitch and was tired of only having sex twice a year. She called him insensitive; she was going through that ‘time.’ He called her … well, you get the idea.
My parents were pretty well off and he left Mom in good shape. The house was paid off, he was paying her steady alimony and she was getting a share of the profits from his business. He’d also made sure that my college education was covered and then some. I’d be able to get a doctorate with the amount of money in my trust fund.
Still, it was pretty harsh the way he did it and I could understand some of where Mom was coming from, but not 24 hours a day every weekend. I needed a little stress relief from my classes, not this.
So I’d skipped a weekend. Then three. When I did go home, she was absolutely intolerable. To hear her tell it, I was almost as bad as Dad and my brother and sister were worse. How could she not see it was her driving us away?
On top of that, she was starting to let herself go. Mom was never a raving beauty, but she took pretty good care of herself and always dressed nice. I could swear she’d put on twenty pounds the last time I visited and she wore nothing but baggy sweats and an over-sized t-shirt the whole time I was there. When I tried to get her to go out for dinner, she refused. I didn’t get it.
But she was still my mom. So I was headed home again, determined to suffer through it. Three days, if I could stomach that much.
I cut the engine on my old Harley, before rolling silently up the driveway. Hearing the engine of Dad’s motorcycle drove her a little crazy, so I tried to minimize the damage. I opened the garage and parked my bike next to her car, entering the house through the kitchen.
I needn’t have bothered with the noise. Friday night, seven o’clock, and the house was empty. I breathed a sigh of relief, that I wouldn’t have to hear her bellyaching for a little while longer, grabbed a soda from the fridge, and headed for the study. I’d missed my XBOX and figured a little me time was in order.
I’m not sure how long I played, but when I took the headset off, I could hear Mom arguing with someone. Killing the game, I walked out to see what was going on. It only took a few seconds to hear it was Aunt Carol.
“Never again, Winnie. God, I feel so disgusting!”
“Why? You didn’t do hardly anything. All you did was watch and make sure nobody came in the door, except for that one handjob,” Mom snapped.
Handjob?
“Don’t remind me. Seeing you on your knees, doing what you were doing, God, it was so gross, so filthy, and at the same time – well, you know. You have to stop doing this. It’s not safe, and I can’t keep tagging along to be your bodyguard. I’m not going to let you drag me down with you. I can’t.”
Knees? Doing what she was doing? Bodyguard? What the fuck!
Mom chuckled. “Admit it, Carol. You were ready to blow that guy. You know you were. If I hadn’t looked over, I bet you would have had him halfway down your throat.”
“I … I can’t, Winnie. I don’t want to. I won’t be put in that position again.”
“I’ve gotta do something, Carol. I’m going crazy. It’s the only thing that makes me feel like a woman.”
“Then go out, hit a bar, go dancing, just not this!” My aunt was getting pretty loud. Hell, I don’t think I’d ever heard her yell before.
“Yeah, that worked so well. Who wants an old fat woman? You remember what happened at Whiskey Row?”
I was standing in the hallway and peeked around the corner. They were sitting on the couch together, sharing a bottle of wine, facing the TV away from me. I squatted down and leaned around the corner so I could hear better. Probably unnecessary, the way they’d been yelling at each other.
Aunt Carol sighed, leaned over and hugged Mom. “They’re not all like that. You’ve got to keep trying. There are still good men out there.”
Mom shook her head. “Be real. If you can’t find one, as pretty as you are, what are my chances? I fucked up my marriage, and now I’m going to be alone the rest of my life. I’m a dried up prune, with the sex appeal of a burlap sack.”
“Stop that!” Aunt Carol snapped. “So you’ve let yourself go a little. Go to the gym with me, we’ll get you back to looking gorgeous and desirable, you’ll see. You can stop this insanity of going to Josephine’s, and find someone worthwhile.”
Josephine’s? Shit! There was only one Josephine’s as far as I knew. A run down adult shop with fifty-cent video booths in back, each with its own glory-hole. It was a popular place with the truckers next door at Love’s. It was also popular with drunken teenagers, as I knew too well.
“Be real, Carol,” Mom said. “I was never gorgeous. The only man that desired me was my husband, and I lost him. I should have just bought a ten pound tub of KY and let him fuck me.”
“Or maybe seen a doctor and got on some meds,” Aunt Carol offered.
“Now you tell me. A little late, don’t you think?”
“Well if I’d known, maybe I could have said something. But nooo, you were always so private, claiming everything was hunky-dory. I’m your sister, damn it! You could have told me!”
“Tell you what? It hurts to fuck my husband? My dried up cunt is like sandpaper? The only thing we did anymore was his weekly blowjob, and even then it only succeeded half the time? Is that what you wanted to hear, my sorry excuse for a sex life?”
“Maybe I could have helped?” Aunt Marie offered.
“Right. You could be my stunt double. Show up for all the sex scenes.”