Ah... Honey, We Have to Talk Ch. 01

I didn't have to say it. Mom must have read my mind to know that I knew. We are open books to our parents sometimes. My face betrayed me. Not that I was trying to hide it. The shock of my parent's divorce was so new to me, and I was still hurting. How had these people, so dear and close to me, fallen out of love and split up in such a short time? But it had not been recent from what mom had said on that awful tape. It had been going on for years. Was this the same woman as on that audio? The woman, my father, had described?

"Jake," she said in a tone that displayed both empathy and understanding. "I know you probably have questions, but not here, please. I'll answer them over dinner. OK? Do you have time if we go now?"

I nodded to her and walked out first when she motioned me to. Locking her office door, she then took my arm to walk out with me. Something about her had changed. Not just the weight loss. Something else.

One does not want to look at his mother's upper body assets intentionally, but as she walked next to me, I finally did. But I did not say anything until we were outside. Did she have a boob job? It was not extensive. Probably a lift with minor enhancement only a person familiar with her would notice, but it was not her old body for sure. Just as I was about to ask, she stopped me.

"Jake, hon, can we take both cars? I've had a tiring day and don't want to come back and get mine. We can eat at Red Lobster near where I live. Just follow me, OK?"

"Sure, mom," I replied and went to my car as she did to hers.

As she drove off in her oversized SUV, I noticed she was dialing her phone and placing it on a holder on the dash. She was smiling as she talked to the other party. Mom sure looked and acted happy after the split with dad. She seemed like a new woman. Not that the old one had been unattractive or dower. But she seemed to have more pep to her step. A smile of people going places. Something not seen in recently divorced people.

In fifteen minutes, we were at the restaurant and walked in to be seated. We parked it at the bar waiting for our table to be ready, and she ordered a drink. I stuck to ginger ale wanting to remain sober for her side of the story. But I wanted a double scotch as I eyed the Johny Walker bottle behind the bartender.

Mother sat on her barstool like she had done this a million times. She looked and acted in control. She was not the woman I knew as a mom when I grew up anymore. Back then, she was a stay-at-home mom who raised me and then my sister, who was born five and a half years after me. By the time my sister came along, I was ready for kindergarten, and my mother decided to return to work, placing my sister in daycare.

Mom was... mom -- a fairly attractive five-foot-three woman with her then light brown hair streaking to a dark blond in the summer. To say she was smart would be an understatement. She could have homeschooled us had she wanted to but chose to send us to public school to 'get the full socializing experience,' she often said.

Smart was a word that did not match her intellect. She took an IQ test once but chose to keep the results secret from my father not to hurt his feelings. I did find it, though, and saw the number 169. I would take the test years later and have a 146; my sister a 152. So we knew where the brains in our family came from. Poor dad was down to 132. Not shabby, but mom did not want to belittle him. I think she still cared about her husband's feelings back then.

"OK, Jake," she said, turning to me. "Go ahead. Let's have it."

I looked around then, wondering if this was the place to do this, but the bar was kind of quiet. Only one couple in a booth not close to us let us talk in privacy as the bartender went to the other side of the bar to do bartender things.

"Mom, what happened between you and dad?"

"Jake," she said and took a sip. "I wish I could tell you something profound. But the bottom line is I... got bored."

"What!" was all I could manage to reply.

She snickered and took another sip before she looked at me again. I looked for some sense of remorse or guilt, but there was none on her expression. Just a bemused sense of defiance and... relief? Was she glad she was about to let me know? This from a woman who had cheated on my father for the last five or more years?

"OK, Jake. It's simple, really," she continued. "Once you kids were in school, I went back to work. And I discovered I was quite good at it. Not just the selling of stock and managing money and properties, but of gauging the markets in our area and others around the state and nation. I invested my earnings in stock and my property investments and was becoming quite comfortable."

"Did dad know of this?" I asked. "Because I don't remember it coming up in conversation."

"Why should you, and why should he? The success was mine. We lived comfortably. I always matched what your father contributed but kept the rest. I had to be prepared just in case he ditched me."

I rolled my eyes at her confession.

"Oh, don't make the disapproving face, Jake. I have seen you do it before, and it does not suit you. You are too young for it."

"I was asking about you and dad splitting up. Why are we discussing your investments?"

"Because Jake," she replied. "That is where it all started. My success fed my self-confidence in both my professional and personal abilities. Men began to notice me and pay me compliments. Not just in my business acumen but my appearance. In case you don't know, son, every woman thrives knowing men appreciate her looks. And it's good to hear it once in a while at home."

"If I remember correctly, dad always told you he loved you and got you flowers...."

"What he did was for appearance - to you and your sister. Not where it counted."

Again, the reference to dad and her. Their sexual relationship.

"Jake, Jake... please try and focus as an adult," she snapped back. "A woman needs to feel like a man wants her. Not just that, but he shows her how as... a man would and should. Do you understand?"

I think I did, but how do you discuss how your dad was no longer exciting her in the sack with your mother?

In that instant, I saw a side of her and dad I never knew. She was referring to my father's lack of interest. Had he neglected her? I mean, he used to travel on business trips, but other men did as well, even women, and their marriages didn't go to shit. I was in the military where... OK, we're a terrible example. Our divorce rate is through the roof. So is the cheating rate. This was not good.

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Jake, you're a grown man with a wife and family. What do you think your wife would do if you no longer gave her in bed what she needed?"

And there it was. Pops had not been carrying the load. It wasn't just him being absent. And yet, Joanna thought otherwise.

"So you chose to cheat on dad to get better sex?" I asked.

She scoffed at me.

"Jake, I am in my mid-forties. I realized seven years ago that I had needs that your father was not fulfilling. Not only was he repetitive and boring in bed, but he was also starting to do it less and less as I needed it more and more. I have always needed it, Jake - since I was young. Oh, don't make faces. We are adults here."

"OK, mom, go on."

"I had fun in high school and college with many boys and men. But I wanted a family, and you can't be fucking around while you try to have children with your husband. So, I put it on hold and got married. Then I stayed chaste to your dad. I tried Jake. I truly tried to stay faithful. But his business trips and lack of interest made me ask. Is this all there is?"

I just listened and watched her in shock and disbelief. My mother was not giving me an excuse for what she did. It was a clinical yet passionate explanation. Not one I wanted to hear or that I agreed with as a man. But it was her version of events, and I wanted to understand why she had chosen this path over her family and husband. I wondered now if she had loved dad at all.

No, that was not fair. Mom had loved him alright - in the past. She had spoken up for him and backed him many times, and she had raised their children properly. My sister and I were proof of that. Not once had I felt I was neglected or gone without care and attention. I was almost positive that she had not been cheating early on.

No, I was not that certain of that anymore. With both myself and my sister Nancy in school, mother had time to meet men and sleep around if she wanted to. I just didn't think that of my mom.

"I came home one day early from school, and you and Mr. Jacobs were having coffee in the living room. I was in tenth grade then. Nancy was still in elementary school. Were you and Jacobs when it started?" I asked, remembering him as one of the soccer dads.

"He was not the first Jake, and to be honest... I had almost forgotten him. He, like many men, left a mediocre impression." Staring at me defiantly, she continued. "I like sex, Jake. I love sex. I got up one day after your father had been gone for days and decided I would not spend the rest of my life being left disappointed, unfulfilled, and unsatisfied."

"Was it the separations?" I asked.

"Partially. I had spent some of the best years of my life as a devoted wife. For your dad to be gone half the time and then show little interest in me when he was home. And I was not going to spend the rest that way. So long as you kids were taken care of, and your father received the mediocre attention that he was settling for," she sighed. "What I did on my time was none of any of your business. Not Randy's, not Nancy's, and definitely not yours."

"So what, mom? You took lovers? Steady ones or strangers in one-night stands?"

"Both and more," she replied defiantly. "I had many lovers. Some, much better than others. Some for months. Others for just a few times and yet others just once. The good ones, longer than others if they were available."

"Why didn't you talk to dad?"

"Oh... talk. That's a concept...let me write it down. Talk... ing," mom mimed, writing a note on imaginary paper with an imaginary pen. Then she snapped. "I DID talk to your father, Jake. I told him that I needed him more. That I needed us to do... more. Yes, I have a high sex drive, but I would have settled for him trying to be... interesting and learn new tricks when we were alone. To make me feel special, wanted. Loved."

"Dad loved you. He still does. I can tell."

"What the hell does saying it and not acting like it, mean? Saying it occasionally and doing it is different, Jake. He made me feel like he lost interest in me." It was her turn to show pain in her expression. "I even offered to join a swingers' club so he could fuck other women free of guilt and complications. But he blew me off. The arrogant bastard blew me off."

"How would that have helped?"

"Well, if he didn't find me attractive anymore, he could do it with other women, and maybe I could find a man or men who wanted me. Being desired is just as important as the sex Jake. Don't you ujnderstand? My own husband didn't want me. Why? There was nothing wrong with me."

She was animated by this point and quite emotional. I had never seen her this way before in all the years I knew her. But then I realized how little I had known my mother. I mean, really know her. All I knew was what she let me see and what I had wanted to see in her as a young man with no experience in life. And here I was, a grown man with a wife and children who was noticing his mother in her true form for the first time in his life.

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath to compose herself in mere seconds. The transformation was apparent when she turned to me and the side of her mouth curved up in a slightly forced smile. But her eyes were focused on me, like when she caught me screwing Jane Marchetti without a condom in senior year.

"Grow up, Jake," she hissed. "Get a handle of what I am telling you because if you do as your father did, I can see you divorced in a few years; if you last that long."

"Mom. With all due respect. You seem to have a very cavalier attitude about fidelity. You seem to think that you had a license to cheat on dad. To be honest, I don't even know who you are anymore. You seem to have no shame or remorse for what you did."

"Oh yes... shame. The concept is for the guilty Jake. Once your father broke the marriage contract, I felt no shame and no remorse."

"How did he do that? Did you catch him cheating?"

"If he did, that is on him. If he was, he was most likely doing it when he traveled. You can ask him that. I did not go around checking on him or investigating him. You know, as he did with the idiotic investigator following me around and the stupid cameras."

"Well, they worked, didn't they?"

"Had he put as much effort in our sex life as he did with the investigation, we would not be where we are. No, Jake. Your father broke the marriage deal."

"Then how did he break the marriage contract, as you put it?"

"Look, Jake. When a couple gets married, they promise to be each other's everything, right? Spouse, parent, provider, and most importantly, lover. That is part of love," she did air quotes as the famed L-word. "When your dad stopped giving me what I was supposed to get "ONLY" from him, he broke the contract."

"But you still had sex, right?"

"Bad sex, when you have had good with the same person, speaks volumes. It says I used to like having sex with you, but I no longer do. When he started holding out on me, he unilaterally decided to diminish my sex life."

I was not all on board with her explanation, but then she was making some good points. Before I could ask more, she continued.

"So I was careful. I hid things and lied and plotted so I would not be discovered, and you guys would not be disgraced or shamed by what I had done. All through the times you and Nancy were in our home growing up, nothing affected you. In fact, you had a good childhood and progressed to adulthood as well-adjusted human beings. Did you go without? Did you go hungry? Did you go without any necessities? You had more than most, and you had my love. You always had my love and still do."

She could tell that I was not buying her explanation.

"Look, Jake, if you want to condemn me, I'll live with it. But it is my life, and I chose how to live it."

"Mother, you broke your vows and betrayed dad, your husband. If you didn't want to be married to him, why didn't you divorce him?"

She looked at the ceiling and then back down at her drink before she took another sip. I could only imagine what she was thinking. Had she ever regretted her actions? Did she ever miss dad after the divorce?

"I thought about that many times Jake. I knew by the time you left to go in the army that my marriage was a sham. But I just could not let go while your sister was in the home. So I stayed and planned to end it when she went to college. But by then, I had gotten used to how we were. And while you may not believe me, I still had... and have feelings for your father. To this day, I care about him and want him to have a good life. After your sister was in college, I guess I stopped being as careful and guarded as I had once been. I think... subconsciously, I stopped caring if I got caught or not."

"Mother, I..."

"Jake," she said, placing her hand over mine and wincing when I pulled it back. "I wanted to enjoy my life after you and your sister were grown. That's all. Your father and I lost what we had long ago. But go back and ask him if I neglected his needs when he was around and interested? He didn't even know what I was doing before I let my guard down a year ago. And even then, I stopped everything and convinced him to move when I realized he was suspicious."

"You had a chance to start again clean and not do what you had been doing, mother," I asked in frustration. "Why didn't you?" Why didn't you start clean and make your marriage work?"

"Marriage Jake?" she scoffed. "What marriage?"

"The one you had with dad," I replied.

"The one I lost with your dad, you mean," she shot back. "Look, Jake. I had lost respect for your dad. He knew how much I needed sexual gratification, and he made no effort to improve and give me what I wanted. In fact, after I asked him to consider some changes to spice up our sex life, he got worse. That practically told me to get it elsewhere, Jake. Do you know how rejection hurts?"

This was deep.

"Would you do that to Leila if she told you your sex life was suffering? That she was suffering? Would you make an effort to fix things or choose to give her less and treat her like her needs and happiness did not matter? Because that's EXACTLY what your father did with me, Jake. And when he did, I lost all respect for him as a man. He was willing to toss the dice and lose me instead of stepping up and working on what was missing in my life... OUR life Jake. He just didn't give a shit."

"Mom, I don't know what to tell you, but I think you are rationalizing things."

"And you ARE NOT FUCKEN listening Jake," she snapped at me and caught herself raising her voice. "You are judging me by your rules of olden days where marriage is a suicide pact. For better or worse? I get that if a person is sick, but not if they are lazy and stop showing love and affection. Dam it, Jake! I was a good wife and mother to his kids. And take my word for it. Both Nancy and you are your father's children. I deserved better than what crumbs he was tossing my way every couple of weeks if that much."

"So No! I am not playing by the rules of society. Those rules would have me live an unhappy, boring life. Well, fuck that! I only have one life. And I will not live it like shit because your old man wanted to. I did my bit for you and your sister. I even did my bit for your father when we were still together. It is what it is, but you still don't understand Jake."

"Understand what?"

"Understand your weakness and possible downfall," she said, waiting for me to hear what she said. "I got your attention finally?"

I said nothing and listened reluctantly to this stranger I once called my mother.

"I know you are a grown man Jake," she said now in a calm and motherly demeanor. "I know you have seen war and have hardened. I have seen you change in the last three years. As a soldier, you are probably at your peak from all the medals they have pinned on you. But as a husband, you are naive and on your way to divorce or at best a boring passionless marriage."

"What do you mean, mom?" I asked. "Are you trying to play games with my head? Why?"

She shook her head and came close to me. She took my face in her hands and locked her eyes to mine.

"You may be a grown man Jake, but you are still my boy at heart. I still love you and care for you. And I will keep loving you until the day I die. I am saying this to you to help you. To help prevent your marriage from going to hell like mine and your father's did. Just listen to me, please. OK?"

"Go ahead," I relented.

"Jake, you married a beautiful woman with a high sex drive. I talked to her and know how she is physically and sexually like me. She needs it and craves it, Jake. She loves you so much she is trying like hell to sate her needs with masturbation, fingers, a dildo, and a vibrator. But they are not what a woman needs. If anything, toys can make a woman feel less about herself than doing without at all."

She did not let up. I had a feeling she had this conversation prepared for when I returned and was going through it point by point.

"That may work early in your deployments, Jake. Maybe good enough for the first month or so. But by the third month, Jake, she is going bat-shit crazy sexually. She is a young and vibrant woman. Men see her around town, and they see her alone. She may not be telling you this so as not to worry you, but she is being hit on a lot."