I was totally confused. But not for long.
“Lisa! Where are you?” Dad’s voice drifted up the hallway, and sounded like it was coming this way. “Lisa?”
Mom calmly got up, straightened and retied her robe, and called back, “In here talking to Scott.”
She threw the sheet over me—the me with the naked bottom half with the vagina-soggy penis. Blanket and spread followed.
Dad knocked and came in. “Talking about me?”
“I was clearing up some misconceptions Scott had,” Mom said.
“Conceptions are important,” I countered. “I hope I ‘conceive’ of the right thing in the future.” I liked playing with that word tonight.
Mom gave me a look. Dad was clueless.
“Come to bed,” he said. “You should be resting.” Then he patted Mom’s stomach proudly.
“I got a good feeling about today, Dad!”
“So do I, son.”
“I’ll talk with you in the morning,” Mom ended with. Dad put his arm around her, around his woman, around his woman filled with his son’s cum.
I sat staring at the wall. “Mom’s crazy in bed,” I said to the wall.
*************************************
“Off to the conference,” Dad said the next morning. Mom had cooked him an early breakfast because he had to travel two hours to Sacramento for a big meeting. “You two hold down the fort. It’ll be late.”
Mom was already dressed. She volunteered three times a week down at the hospital.
We didn’t talk while she cooked me some eggs and toast. I didn’t want to be the first one to bring up the night before. Maybe she didn’t either.
“I thought it was alcohol,” Mom said.
“What about alcohol?”
“In college, I couldn’t ever remember what I had done with my boyfriend until the next day. I thought it was because I had been drinking.”
“And…?”
“I know now that it was sex and not alcohol. So that’s cleared up. Sex is what short circuits my short term memory.”
“So this morning you remember?”
“I remember every detail now about last night.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“I have to be off to the hospital. What are your plans today?” Mom asked. She picked her car keys off the counter.
“Swimming over at Carrie’s.”
“Have a good time,” she said. Nothing about not liking Carrie for once.
************************************
Carrie wore bright blue and yellow polka dots. They were painted on a bikini, or a two-piece. I didn’t know the difference.
“You didn’t catch the ball,” she said.
“I didn’t see it coming.”
The red beach ball found its way back into her hands, and she made a playful gesture as if she was going to wham me with it. I didn’t react.
“You’re no fun today. It’s a beautiful day and you’re wasting it sitting there in that chair. Let’s swim, let’s play badminton, let’s go up to my room!”
Any one of those, especially the last one would have made me come alive. Not today. I was still reliving and rehearing the night before. Now I was replaying each detail: how Mom looked, how she smelled, how she felt, the sound of her voice. There weren’t enough hours today to process everything that we shared.
And there really wasn’t enough of my attention to spend it on Carrie. All of a sudden, she seemed like a kid to me. A spoiled kid who demanded every single bit of my undivided attention. Today it was divided and it was long division. A long way from Carrie.