Later that night, after dinner and my shower, I was standing in my bedroom, looking at myself in the full length mirror. I was 42 years old and hadn’t even thought about sex in… ages. I didn’t have any real desire to attract a man (and I worked almost exclusively with women), so it had never really occurred to me. Was I still attractive? Dylan seemed to think so.
My hair was long. Very long at the time, more than halfway down my back and very straight. Sometimes, like now, I had it in a long, loose ponytail. It was very dark brown, nearly black. My eyes were similar actually, such dark brown that in certain lights I looked like I just had massive pupils. My eyes themselves were large and round, my eyelashes long naturally. I had a somewhat round face with a thin, short nose and wide, fat lips. A pretty face, I supposed.
But now, looking at myself in the mirror, I knew that it wasn’t my face that had allowed me to achieve the rank of a “hot mom.” It was my body. I had breasts that weren’t large, but looked large on my narrow frame. Further, because they weren’t too big, they still sat up high and perky on my chest. I had large, puffy pink nipples. My waist was narrow, my hips about as wide as my breasts. I had a tight, pink pussy with puffy lips the same color as my nipples. I had just finished shaving myself clean, so I could get a better look at myself. My ass was high and round, though small. My legs were short, but elegant. In sum, I still had the body that had enticed Big Anthony all those years earlier.
“Your mom is so fucking hot,” I said to myself quietly, as I looked in the mirror, and I shrugged. Dylan’s words. I guessed he was right, I thought while smiling. I no longer even begrudged him the bra. It was nice, on a bad day, to be reminded that if nothing else you were attractive.
But thinking about what Dylan had said was, I knew, just a way of avoiding thinking about Anthony Jr. After I had gone back inside, I had made the conscious decision to just not think about Anthony Jr. for a little while. To not think about what he’d done. The way he had violated my privacy. That was still wrong and I was still upset. But, at the same time, I was now feeling a little bit… good about myself as I turned and gazed at myself in the mirror. And, to a certain extent, that was because Anthony Jr. had invaded my privacy. How could I feel good and still hold a grudge? What good would it be to even bring this up? I would write off the bra and panties and pretend I didn’t know anything about it.
“After all,” I said quietly to myself, “Anthony Jr. can’t help it if he as a hot mom.” I laughed a little bit and shook my head. I walked over to my bed and found the large extra-large t-shirt that I wore to bed and slipped it over my head. I decided not to worry with panties tonight.
“He does know, after all, that he has a hot mom,” I said now, turning back to look at myself in the mirror. The bulky shirt hid my body, and I looked at my face, pursing my lips. And, at that, I remembered the real reason I had avoided thinking about Anthony Jr. that night, avoided thinking about him even when we were sitting at the kitchen table together, eating in silence.
Anthony Jr. behaved like a child. He did childish thing. Trading my underwear for some sort of trading card was surprising, sure, but not really shocking. It was in character. No, the real reason I had been shocked had been something more subtle. Dylan had said I was hot. Anthony Jr. protested, saying I was his mom. Dylan said Anthony Jr. had never denied that I was hot. Anthony Jr. didn’t respond. Not a word about it. For several seconds. I hadn’t seen what Anthony Jr.’s face looked like during those seconds. Hadn’t been able to gauge what he was thinking.
“Sex,” a voice in my head said. Not mine. “The best thing about being an adult.” It was Joanne. It was her suggestion. The carrot to light a fire underneath of Anthony Jr. Find something about adulthood, and make that the reward. Adults have sex.
“Sometimes,” I said aloud, ruefully. I sat for a minute in silence and then realized what I was doing, “Christ Bev, what are you thinking?” I asked myself, appalled. Without even realizing it, I had been wondering whether or not Anthony Jr. found me attractive. And what advantage I could gain from that. But that wasn’t a motherly thought. It was… perverse. I ignored any physical excitement I felt at those unmotherly thoughts. Pretended I didn’t feel them.
Once again, I lapsed into silent thought. And, once again, I found myself circling back to the thoughts I had just audibly rejected. I pictured myself slipping my bulky t-shirt back off, padding across the hallway into my son’s room and there, naked, telling him…
“No, no, no!” I said to myself, laughing a little bit nervously and shaking my head. This was just crazy. It was crazy because I was just so stressed out worry about Anthony Jr. lately, and then those things that Joanne told me, and Dylan and… I wasn’t myself right now. I felt attractive for the first time in ages and I really didn’t know how to handle it. And I was just… I was desperate and I wanted to do something desperate to at least prove that I given it everything.
That thought sunk into my brain as I climbed into my bed and pulled up the covers. Because that was what I was doing. Even if I hadn’t realized it before. But now… thinking about it, was it such a bad idea? I had always said I would do anything for my son. I had done anything for him, up to this point. Tried everything I could think of to get him back on the right track. None of that had worked. I wasn’t just feeling desperate. I was desperate.
“And what is the alternative?” I asked myself aloud. Joanne had supplied that answer as well. If I didn’t think of something, anything, to motivate Anthony Jr., then there was really only one other option left. Something I had also been trying to avoid thinking about.
“What is less motherly?” I asked myself, “to go next door and… well whatever. Do what needs to be done with love in my heart? Or kicked him out? Where I know that he can’t take care of himself and he might get hurt or resent me forever? Or wait 35 years and then die not knowing if he can care for himself as an old man? Of those three things, what’s the least bad option?”
I realized, in that moment, that I had been rolling these idea around in my mind all evening. Ever since I had heard that moment of silence between Dylan and Anthony Jr., with Joanne’s advice ringing in my head. I had been probing my mind, wondering if this was something that I should do. If it was something I could do. My mind hadn’t allowed me to really think about it, consciously. Because I knew I would reject the only thing I knew to be the correct answer.
It was wrong, I had reached that conclusion. What I was thinking about was wrong. But my other options were also wrong. More wrong. This was the least bad thing that I could do for my son.
I hadn’t even realized, while I was thinking that my realization, that I had gotten up out of bed and slipped my bulky t-shirt back up over my head and turned my lights back on. I was sort of surprised to find myself rummaging through my underwear drawer, searching for something in particular.
“I am just going to go in there and talk to him anyway. Not really do anything, really. Just a kind of… tease or something. Just a little something to motivate him. A vague sort of promise about the benefits of growing up. But nothing more. Just talking,” I said to myself as I got dressed. I didn’t know if what I was saying was true. I just knew that if I stopped to really think about what I was doing for even a second, that I would realize I couldn’t go through with it and stop. I was sort of talking over my brain, trying to trick it into action. And then, I was heading towards the door to my bedroom. My body moving automatically, my thoughts still whirring.
Just a few seconds later, I watched as my hand rose and then rapped gently on Anthony Jr.’s door. I couldn’t… feel my hand. It was strange, it was like I was watching someone else knock. My head felt foggy and my heart was beating so rapidly that it felt like my blood was working into a foam as it rushed through my arteries. I was almost confused by how I had gotten to this spot. Time seemed to be moving strangely.
“Yeah? Come in, mom?” Anthony Jr. s’ familiar voice was saying. For a moment, I almost turned back and headed to my room. What, exactly, did I think I was doing here? But my hand rose again, twisted the doorknob, and in a moment I was standing in Anthony Jr.’s messy childhood room.