"What's a slut?" I asked my mom flatly.
We were in the parking lot of the Jolly Liquor, and my sister Sarah and I were growing impatient in the backseat of our red Mazda sedan. My mom had been speaking with a man through her window for a while until he suddenly hissed, "Slut," and stormed off.
Their conversation had been a blur aside from a few high-pitched giggles, but that word caught my attention.
"It's nothing," my mom lied.
"No—what is it?" I pleaded, knowing she was hiding something and would tell me if I pressed hard enough.
"It's a woman who has a lot of boyfriends."
"Why did he call you that?" I was confused since my parents were still married.
"I don't know. He's weird," she answered, embarrassed and eager to smother the conversation.
She started driving, nervously biting her nails and whispering to herself—something we had gotten used to her doing. "Fucking asshole. Dick is wimpy and smells like old cheese. Let's go this way—turn, turn, turning right. Fucking stick-dick. I need to go to the store tomorrow. Left lane now."
We used to think she was talking to us and we'd respond with questions or affirmations of approval. But when she continued to narrate despite our engagement, we realized we weren't needed. Occasionally, we would misjudge, thinking she was chronicling her actions in private again, and she'd snap, "Why can't you ever respond when I'm talking to you? I don't know why you and your sister always ignore me!"
Sarah had been quiet. She was a bad-tempered thirteen-year-old and knew what a slut was but didn’t care that my mom might be one. Silence was how she communicated both discomfort and disinterest, making reading her moods a difficult endeavour. I tried her anyway.
"What's a slut?" I asked.
"Shut up, Tanya. You're a slut," she spat back, increasing my confusion about how the word should be used. I was just ten and years away from puberty.
Not getting anywhere, I sat back and listened for clues in my mother's incessant chirping about funky genitals and whether we should turn or go straight.
My mom was younger and prettier than other mothers. Her eyes were an icy blue, and her hair was long, wavy and golden, which she used like a peacock's feathers, tossing it about while she laughed and twirling it between her fingers as she listened. Having gotten married when she was twenty-one and seven months pregnant with my sister, she was forever chasing an alternative single life that she felt was not only deserved but possible.
She flirted with my classmates' dads and disappeared behind locked doors with them during our playdates. I was forced to play with a wall-eyed girl named Jennifer, who nasally sang Broadway songs in lieu of conversation and ate dirty gum off the sidewalk just so she could spend an hour with the girl's father. We were taken to PTA potlucks and family festivals to mingle with the wealthy fathers who weren't usually available at after-school pick-up, even though my mom denounced them as "tedious competitions of importance" and "parties for the benevolent and benighted."
When I was five, my mom was invited on a weekend boat ride out on the bay with a male acquaintance but was fairly encumbered by having a husband and two children to accommodate. Reluctant to tell my father yet eager to attend, said she was taking us to visit a dear friend—which she did. She left us in the care of a registered sex offender, who had been arrested for asking to see a little girl's panties at a local park. When I reported that he had tried taking down my underpants as a disciplinary measure, she defended her decision with the premise that a pedophile's love was enough to deter their desire. "Oh, don't be so dramatic! He's so in love with me that I really never thought he'd do anything—and nothing happened anyway."
The car ride felt long. My mom was taking us to dinner at a luxury estate in Belvedere, California while my father worked late in the city. It would be our second visit with its occupants, a Texan businessman my mom met at the Swedish bakery where she worked and his pre-teen son, Max.
Upon arrival, Sarah complained, "Do we have to go? I don't see why we have to go."
"It'll only be an hour. Would it kill you to put yourself out for a bit? He's very wealthy." my mom reasoned.
Sarah rolled her eyes and threw open her door in flimsy protest and I closed it behind us.
Although we appreciated the French Riviera architecture and resort-like amenities of the mansion, my sister and I had already grown weary of consorting with Max. At our first dinner at the house, he carried around sticky slap-hands that had accumulated too much hair from overuse and whacked us with until they broke. His father was newly divorced and unenthusiastic about the demands of a twelve-year-old boy, resulting in Max’s sharp insubordination and untamed buffoonery.
Max was a pudgy kid who looked as though he had been drawn by a kindergartener: one eye was larger than the other and his nose was too high on his face. When he smiled, he revealed widely spaced teeth that appeared to have been taken from a Tic-Tac container. I hated looking at him, but I had serious concern about what his teeth were up to, and I would stare at his mouth until it closed, which wasn't often, as he breathed through parted lips.
The Texan was a broad-chested man with a greasy, red face. He greeted us at the door wearing a mismatched ensemble of flip flops with socks and a Cattleman's hat. "Come in! Come in! Mind your shoes. I'm trying out the whole Japanese thing—cleanliness, right? I have some extra sandals for y'all," he said, with a slowness that made him sound stupid.
Sarah and I didn't want to wear the sandals but weren't comfortable refusing. So after taking off our shoes, we awkwardly forced the thong between our sock-covered toes and kept our steps shallow so they wouldn't fall off.
"Thank you for having us! I hope this bottle of wine is enough. My girls were so excited about coming here again," my mother gushed, her lies always escaping with lightning speed. I grinned in feigned agreement. She had us trained and was confident we wouldn't sell her out. In exchange for our allegiance, she would be jovial, permissive, and fun, and I would likely be rewarded with unlimited TV once we returned home.
Then came the strike of wiggly rubber, followed by the castrato squeal of a hyperactive piglet. Max was barefoot and shirtless, dressed only in a damp pair of swim trunks that clung to his round thighs. He rocked his weight between his feet, unable to be still. "I got you!" he cheered. I tried using Sarah as a shield, but she pushed me away.
"Max, why don't you show the girls the jacuzzi?" the Texan suggested.
"Whoo!! Let's go!"
"We don't have swimsuits," Sarah announced.
"Just wear your underwear and keep your shirt on—or just roll up your pants," my mom offered. She would have encouraged us to go naked if it meant losing us for ten minutes.
Their home had several floors, wings, and rounded balconies extending off of each room. It was sparsely decorated aside from ugly mucus green and brown speckled glass vases that the Texan had made himself after taking a few glass-blowing classes. White columns ran throughout the space, adding dimension to its vacancy, and there was a faint odor of cigarettes and Big Red chewing gum. It was so different from our cramped two-bedroom Section 8 apartment, with its stained carpet littered with dirty clothes and my dad's old beer bottles. Being at the mansion made me feel aristocratic, and I almost forgave my mom for arranging the affair.
"Be good, girls," my mom said before absconding with the Texan to a separate part of the house that I'd have trouble finding on my own. Sarah and I grudgingly shuffled along after Max in the direction of the spa room, looking forward to an excuse to take off the flip flops.
The jacuzzi was voluminous and garishly lined with ferns and small palm trees. It sat perched in the middle of the wide room, a strange oasis in a desert of shiny marble and tall mirrors. Max hoisted his body over the porcelain side and let himself fall into the water, chortling at the splash he made. Sarah had taken off her socks and was rolling up her pants from the ankles while I was still deciding how to approach the situation. The jet streams created quite a foam and I thought I might be able to get away with wearing my oversized T-shirt and underpants without exposing too much.
"Just get in already!" Max urged.
"I am, just—look the other way for a second," I said anxiously as I struggled with my leggings.
"Whoo whoo—take it off!"
"Ew, Max. You're gross," Sarah scolded. She wasn't so much standing up for me as she was simply expressing disgust for boys like him.
I kicked my leggings to a dry spot on the ground and slowly lowered myself into the frothy water. It was hot and stung my skin at first, but I liked the sudden relaxation that came after. Sarah sat on the edge and gently played with the water, letting her feet float up and down with the jacuzzi currents.
"What do you think my dad is doing with your mom?" Max asked.
"I don't know. Talking?" I said innocently and without much imagination.
"Sure—that's what you call it. Taaalking," he was mocking me and I didn't get the joke. "They're probably making out. Or doing it," he continued.
"Ew!" I was aware of what that meant and had assigned profound shame to it as a means of distancing myself from what I had found laying out on my mother's bedside table. Not one for discretion, she left chain-linked nipple clamps, vibrators, and magazines with naked women tied too tightly with synthetic rope in open drawers where she also kept our baby teeth and nail-trimmers for the cats.
When I first found one of her vibrators, I asked her what it was. She told me it was for massage, so I rubbed it all over my back, trying to understand how to best position it for the greatest effect. Then I came across the manual hidden in one of the kitchen cupboards. Without confronting her, I gathered every one of her "massagers" and threw them out in the communal dumpster, angry that she had laughed while it was buzzing around my shoulders.
"Hey—want to see a trick?" Max was quick to shift gears.
"As long as it's a good one," Sarah scoffed.
"Oh, this is a great one!"
I was getting a little sleepy from the heat and ready to sit beside my sister on the jacuzzi’s edge when I noticed something dark-colored emerge from the hot waves. The surface water was white and pearly from the jets, which had helpfully concealed our bodies beneath. But something soft and glistening that I hadn't seen before had begun dancing above my lap. Max had taken off his swim trunks and was letting them swim freely, the drawstrings curling around my arms like awful bits of seaweed that ensnare the feet of naïve beachgoers.
"Look! Look!" Max cried.
I was. I couldn't help but gawk at his on-the-loose apparel and try to make sense of why they were sailing.
"No—look!" he gestured to himself. Max's penis was fully exposed and bouncing around in the bubbles, pale pink and reminding me of his wicked sticky slap-hand. I let out a piercing scream, "Ew! Ew! Mom! Mom!" She wasn't often available to us, but we hadn't given up crying for mother when we felt afraid.
My sister nearly fell backwards as I scrambled toward her trying to get out. She started screaming too. "What is wrong with you? Mom!"
Max patted his belly in proud satisfaction and his subsequent laughter made his penis waggle even more.
Forgetting all about the flip flops and mansion cleanliness, my sister and I ran out of the room, water dripping from our feet and clothes, as we went in search of our mother. She and the Texan met us in the hallway.
"What? What happened?" my mom asked. Her cheeks were a little rosier than usual and the top button of her blouse was undone, revealing a twisted bra strap.
"He took off his shorts!" I panted.
"He showed us his dong!" my sister added without care for word choice.
"Max! You said you wouldn't do that anymore," the Texan shouted in the direction of the spa room. Apparently it wasn't the first time Max had performed his peep show.
"Sorry!" Max called out as he waddled out of the room with a towel around his waist. "C'mon! It was funny!"
The Texan gave him a smirk, genuine and sympathetic to his son's idiocy, and my mom let out a laugh that was a little louder than she expected, causing her to cover her mouth with her fingertips in exaggerated apology, a sign she had dipped into the wine and no longer had concern for anything serious.
"All right, y'all, get dressed and go watch TV—or you can play Hungry Hippo—you like that game, right?" the Texan resolved.
As apprehensive as we were about spending more time with Max unaccompanied, we had been trained to excuse both mild and indefensible violations with ease. It was a spontaneous adaptation to our mother's inconsistent temperament, which vacillated between tempestuous and reverential. I once let a bit of soda dribble onto our sofa accidentally, and she spent an hour gathering up my favorite toys, forcing me to watch, as she dismantled each one, all while telling me I was "an unlovable little freak." But an hour after that, she was taking me to the toy store to buy replacements and insisting she never said those words. Rejecting a bid for repair would leave us in a state of constant ruin, and I was simply too young to accommodate resentment.
"I guess we can play Hungry Hippo," I said. I kind of wanted to. We didn't often get to play Hungry Hippo, even though we owned the game. It consisted of a board divided by four plastic hippopotamuses, each with a lever on their back. Marbles would be released into the center of the board and each player was to frantically press the lever extending the hippo's telescopic neck in order to gobble up the most marbles. My mom said it was noisy and reminded her of "discourteous beggar children hoarding potatoes that had fallen from a truck," so I pretended I didn't like it either. Playing it with Max would be a chance to forget both his exhibition and my mother's criticism.
Max led us to the game room, where we had played the first time we visited. It had a wall of windows and high shelves with misshapen vases, perhaps the first iteration of the Texan's growing collection of hideous self-made art. There were recliners and beanbags and a large TV, a foosball table with paint-chipped players and a covered billiards table tucked away in a dark corner. It was a room for making permissible mischief and I nearly balked at the freedom.
My sister plopped herself down on one of the beanbags in front of the TV.
"I'm bored. Can we watch a movie?" she asked.
Max showed her the stack of VHS tapes in a wooden cabinet.
"I thought we were going to play Hungry Hippos,” I tried my best to sound indifferent.
"Let's make prank phone calls! No—let's go spy on my dad," Max proposed.
"Um—I don't know. Can we play the game first?" I was trying to avoid investigating our parents after hearing about Max's suspicion.
"One game. And then we go spying!"
I hadn't learned how to say no, so I nodded, the promise of autonomy never mine to trust.
I took my time setting up the game, which didn't take much. I chose the pink hippo and Max selected the orange one right across from me. He was still without a shirt and his belly folded in his lap like pillowy dough. I wondered if he went to school like that also.
I released a marble and we began snapping away at it, the plastic clicking loudly. My lever-pressing was successful and I let out a whoop of excitement. Max was either unhappy about it or distracted again. "Ok. That was one game. Let's go."
"Can we play one more?" I asked. But he was already standing, nudging me in my ribcage with his bare foot. "Fine." I glanced at my sister hoping she would be the voice I didn't have, but her eyes were glued to the flickering screen and she probably would have told me to leave anyway.
Making our way down another hallway, Max's footsteps slowed as we came to an unlatched door. Cigarette smoke and that cinnamon gum scent thickened the air, which began vibrating with the low twangy tones of a softly speaking Texan. I guessed we had reached our destination. I heard my mom's goofy drunken slurring and I finally registered the same curiosity Max must have been feeling. She regularly unveiled the mysterious parts of herself to me without solicitation or humility that I almost thought it was my duty to uncover what she tried to hide.
In tandem, Max and I began creeping along the floor, believing we'd make less sound down there. "You're being loud!" Max scolded, the suspense causing excitement and angst. We started kicking each other, clamoring to be the first to reach the doorway. I couldn't help but smile, but I regretted that it was inspired by a boy who showed me his penis. I turned my focus on the door again.
Max pushed lightly on the door, opening it enough for us to sneak through unnoticed. We kept low and peered around the corner to take in the scene.
The Texan was pressed against my mother as she reclined on his bed, his cowboy hat and belt lay in a clustered heap beside it. My pulse quickened and I could hear its thump in my ears, a disgust filling the chambers of my heart. "Mom!" I shouted. Like a reflex, I just wanted her to stop. It was unsettling having witnessed her kiss someone other than my father, but what disturbed me most was that my mother, who liked saying, "I hate smells. I have a very sensitive nose and everything gives me a headache," could tolerate the odor the Texan emanated: a bitter combination of carcinogens and camphor.
My mother and the Texan shot up. "Oh! Oh, hi! We were just talking...closely," my mom said in her sing-song way, unconcerned that we knew she was lying. "Is everything ok?"
"Max, we talked about this," the Texan said to his son. He seemed to talk with Max about a lot of things, but I wasn't sure he ever told him to stop doing them.
"I told you! I told you they were doing it!" Max boasted, even though he was only half right.
"Now, now. We were just talking," the Texan repeated my mother's lie, although he seemed slightly more interested in our credulity than she.
I was stunned, but I didn't dare demand they show respect for the reality Max and I were sharing. I couldn't shake the visceral disappointment that my mother was attracted to a man with a drawl and excessively rosy cheeks, who smelled bad and had a pig with mint-teeth for a child. Her preference for hedonic pleasures being paraded through my childhood came second to that frustration.
I chose not to speak. I only glared at my mom, hoping that my repugnance would reach the withered child-bearer inside, calling her forth to come get me and take me home. She was trying to suppress a laugh, and it made me hate her. Had she never given me glimpses of parental tenderness, I would have been more generous in what I expected from her.
"Why don't y'all get outta here for a while longer and I'll call you when dinner is ready," the Texan said.
"Y'all! Yes, y'all!" my mother was trying out a southern accent but was clueless to how ditzy she was while drunk. "We just need to finish our very important conference."
I still said nothing. Max gave an abrupt snort, typical of his kind, and he tugged on my arm to follow him out of the room.
"See? I knew it! I told you!" Max was elated.
"Whatever," I was angry but I didn't want to offend him by expressing why.
We hurried back to the game room where my sister remained, now laying on her stomach, her chin resting in her hands, and her feet circling the air behind her.
"Where'd you guys go?" she asked.
"We caught them making out!" Max exclaimed.
"What? Really?" Sarah perked up with sincere interest.
"Yeah," I confirmed.
Sarah and I didn't even consider our father or what it meant for our parents' union. My mom and dad's relationship was tumultuous, but I didn't know that other marriages weren't. They had explosive fights that usually ended with my dad's freshest collection of beer bottles being hurled at him as he made an escape, leaving my sister and I to absorb my mother's fury. But I preferred him being around than not. Telling him about my mother's trifling might have pushed him away for good.
"Were they doing anything else?" Sarah wanted more details.
"No, but mom's drunk," I said. Tattling on my mom made me feel virtuous, and I felt my hostility morph into an appreciation for the gossip.
"Yeah, I could tell. I have to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back." Sarah bounced out of the room.
I was no longer feeling apprehensive about Max, as my animosity had a new target: my mother and the Texan.
I asked, “What do you want to do now?"
"Well...we could do what they were doing." Max's voice had dropped, suddenly and strangely, to a whispery rasp that was begging to be heard as seductive. It hit me in my chest.
"Uhh..." I muttered, puzzled by his seriousness. Every bit of me wanted to tell him no, but I had only known reprisal as a consequence of resisting the wants of others.
“Let’s play another round of Hungry Hippos,” I was desperate to avoid looking at him, and I gestured toward the game, wishing for its plastic beasts to do more than smile with surprised eyes.
Max approached me decisively, putting his hand on my shoulder as he drew his soft body close. His stomach was touching my damp shirt, and I could feel its weight, causing me to lay myself down onto the floor, searching for distance that would never arrive.
I registered all the right signals for running, the preparedness for combating violence, but instead I barreled inward, resigned that evading threat was an illusion I could only commit to with imagination. I took a breath and readied myself to be plunged under the salty water of a horny boy’s mouth. His sweaty up-turned nose brushed mine, wickedly imposing cool droplets of reality on my skin, beckoning me to know I had made a choice.
“What are you doing?”
Max tumbled to my side with unusual agility. “What the fuck are you doing?” My sister’s voice had split the moment cleanly, releasing the little girl in me that longed for saving.
“Nothing!” Max lied. I chose silence. I was embarrassed, and providing an explanation would make it worse. I wondered if my agreement to the situation had made a slut, like my mother, whose surrender to a man was just as voluntary.
“Whatever—you’re both gross. Your dad said we should come up for dinner,” Sarah was disapproving and mildly disgusted, but, more important, eager to end the evening.
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My shoes felt coarse against my feet on the car ride home. My sister sat with her arms folded, affirming her hatred for Max and announcing her refusal to ever return to his home.
“Okay, okay! You won’t have to go next time. But isn’t his father sexy?” my mom responded, still drunk and disinterested in boundaries.
I touched the spot on my nose where Max had transferred his wetness and tried to evaluate how much of myself had been left in that room. As my mom might have said if I told her, nothing happened anyway.