My Other Mother Ch. 02

"Excuse me!"

It was Mum.

I braced myself for anything as the unidentified bitch continued heading for Agnes, unwisely ignoring my mother who was just exiting the shadowy stairwell to the sunny sidewalk. Mum really hates being ignored.

"Uh, excuse me!" she almost yelled, stomping after her in two inch heels, breasts jouncing angrily in her shirt, pushup bra or no.

She reminded me of the day when I was in grade seven, that rainy afternoon when she caught the bus driver shouting at me and calling me a bastard as I was disembarking after school. She went right onboard the bus and gave him screaming shit like I've never heard right in front of all the kids, demanding to know who he was to call her son that and what gave him the right to imply that she was a whore. Then she dragged me by the hair all the way down the street and home for a painfully serious conversation about how I shouldn't be telling people to fuck off.

The bitch had almost made it to elderly lady, but paused, looking around at Mum as she approached and placed herself between the woman and Agnes.

"Who are you?" Mum demanded with a controlled, yet forceful tone, looking at her as though she were something she'd normally find stuck to the bottom of one of her shoes.

"Who am I? I own this fuckin' building, is who I am!"

"That doesn't give you the right to badger your tenants."

"They owe me for three months rent! They're skipping out!"

"That's your problem, lady. I'm in charge of this move, and I don't intend to have you holding things up or upsetting anyone, so turn right around and-"

"I don't give a fuck about that, I want my money!" she insisted, unaware of how much Mum also hates being interrupted.

"They don't have any money, nor did they have running water this past winter because the pipes were frozen."

"If they'd stop fucking with the plumbing, that shit wouldn't be happening!"

"That's a bald-faced lie. You're a slumlady and you're forcing-"

"None of this is any of your business, you... human udder!"

Oh, that was bad. I watched my other mother's eyes narrow as two young women approached from the opposite sidewalk.

" ... I think I've had just about enough of you." Mum warned in a tone I'd never even heard her use with Dad. "I'm going to tell you this once, so you listen good. Neither Agnes nor Pitbull have any money and I won't have you upsetting the eighty-eight year old woman who had to live with a frozen toilet all last winter. Have I made myself perf-?"

"And I told you I don't give a fu-!"

"(SLAP!)"

The frump staggered to the side under the force of the sudden strike, Mum repositioning herself between her and Agnes, an arctic cold stare challenging the curler headed woman to defy her further.

In the silent pause, as the slumlady stared in shock with her hand on her undoubtedly stinging face, a strangely slow, dry, rasping cackle came from beside the van. It was Agnes, weakly pointing at the bitch and laughing as hard as her old frame would probably permit without breaking something.

"That's... that's assault!" the slumlady charged.

"No," Pitbull disagreed, "it was self defense; I saw the whole thing. Right, Trina? Right, Cathy?"

"Fuckin' totally." One of the young women, a blonde said with a smile, the other nodding her agreement, saying, "I could produce as many witnesses as you want and they'd all agree."

"It's time for you to leave," Mum enforced. "Now."

The frump was about to continue her argument, even beginning to stand straighter for a more physical confrontation, but then stopped. It was almost as though she suddenly recognized Mum from somewhere, the way her eyes focused, her features becoming unsure, then surprised. I could no longer see Mum's face from that angle, but I knew why the woman stopped. I knew why she cautiously backed away a few steps before turning to leave without another word, looking back once at the end of the block before turning the corner.

"Chop chop, you two, the excitement's over," she happily directed Pitbull and I afterwards.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up at just how fast she could switch between extreme moods and I found myself sincerely hoping that she was in control, that these moods were only performances in the same manner as how she seemed to change a little depending on who she was dealing with. Except, I knew damned well that some of them weren't.

I found myself standing stock still, staring at her and she actually walked right up to me, pinching my cheek and giving me a smile, eyes brighter than ever, yet still so subtly, disturbingly dark.

"Move your butt, honey, still another couple loads to go."

" ... Right," I said, breaking out of my sculpted stance. I headed for the dark doorway with Pitbull, he looking at my other mother with obvious respect and admiration.

"Hello, girls my name is Kathleen. Thanks so much for your support."

"No problem, any friend of Pitbull's is a friend of ours. I'm Trina, this is Cathy."

"I'm very pleased to meet you both. That's a really nice top, by the way and it looks great on you."

Within five minutes, Trina and Cathy were helping out.

Once the move was done, the van gassed and returned to its spot in front of Jamie's building, the five of us spent the rest of the afternoon setting up the new apartment as Agnes happily watched. Mum created this mood where everyone was tossing jokes around, going about the work with positive attitudes, even passing around a pint of Bacardi's from her purse until it was gone. She and her two new friends set up Agnes's room, laughing uproariously every now and then at some form of female humour while Pitbull and I arranged the living room and moved boxes to their appropriate rooms.

Nobody swore the entire time.

Part 3

I watched her arranging our money from the chair opposite her at the old table later that evening, adding the one hundred Dollars she accepted from Agnes to the fold before placing it neatly into her wallet. The sun had just gone down on the horizon and the light from the blood red sky was raying into our open window, partially filling the room along with fresh air from the Bay of Fundy.

"Did you see those two little baby makers?" she asked.

" ... Trina and Cathy?"

"Yes. Nice girls, but whores nonetheless. Pitbull's a good guy, but don't get involved with him and his life. Don't be running around drinking and smoking up with him or anybody you might meet through him. They're all resources and nothing more. Got it?"

"Yes," I answered, watching her turn serious about her words now.

"Yes, what?"

"Yes, Mum."

" ... I mean it, don't get involved and, above all, don't end up fathering a child by some whore who only wants to use you to support her, or your child as an excuse to get a bigger welfare check. I guarantee you that I could line up women from Water Street, Right up Princess and to the corner here, all disgruntled mothers who've seen their boys waste their lives like that. Don't get close, don't get attached. With any luck we'll be gone from here before the end of the month and we don't want any baggage from this place. We travel light."

"They do seem pretty nice, though."

"Sure, they are. More importantly, they network. Around here, people don't call the pigs when they have a problem with someone, they just... you know."

"I think so."

"Pitbull is exactly the kind of person you want in your debt."

"Yeah, but they paid us."

"We helped him and his grammie. That's priceless."

I saw the calculating wisdom in this and the other things she'd said. Of course, she was right. There was a reason I did what she told me, a reason why I trusted her and it was because I instinctively knew that Mum would deliver. She had to do her thing for the both of us, but it was still damned worrisome. There were things about my other mother I didn't like and, truth be told, there were times when I was still a little afraid of her.

After a pause had gone between us, "Hey Mum?"

"Yes?"

"What were you like when you were my age?"

"On my own and much better off for it."

" ... Well, I mean when you were in school and stuff."

"Heh. In school... Sheila and I were known as 'the misery sisters'. It was more a respectful joke, or a kind of shared title among our friends. We liked it."

"What did it mean?"

"It meant that nobody messed us around. Everybody knew that bad things came from messing around with the Burchell girls," she reminisced with a smile. "Sheila was particularly inventive. I was the more, um... centered and careful one."

"What kind of stuff did you do?"

"Insidious things. Like feeding people who ticked us off Ex-lax. Firecrackers in people's cigarettes, loosened front wheels on bicycles, that kind of thing. The severity depended on the crime. For example, there was this teacher in junior high that was giving Sheila a really hard time, so we captured a raccoon and got it into her car. Heh. Sheila took her aside earlier that day and asked her if she'd had her rabies shots. You know, so she'd know who was responsible without being able to prove it."

"How'd it go once she got in the car?"

"Not good. Well, not for her. She was actually on the way out of the staff parking lot when the thing attacked. Smashed right into another car and everything. Actually, that whole incident really taught me a lot about cause and effect."

"Geez, I imagine it did."

"Oh yeah, and the raccoon bit and scratched her up pretty bad, too. She was out of school for three weeks. This other time, one of our neighbors, this jerk who lived across the street from us, ran over our Kitty. We knew he saw her too, because we were there and he didn't even slow down. That was when we were twelve and thirteen, so we were a bit more simplistic then. Well, he always had this unmowed lawn in his backyard where he'd walk around barefoot with a bottle of beer, no shirt, thinking he was the man and stuff. One night in bed, we got the idea to plant a few short, narrow pieces of old plywood with some nice rusty spikes sticking up, so a few nights later, once we were ready, we snuck out of the house in the middle of the night and did it."

"You're kidding."

"Nope."

"Did he...?"

"Yup. We were part of the crowd that was standing around watching when the ambulance came. The spike went right through his foot and the little piece of plywood almost looked like this weird sandal. The best part was when he stepped on one of the other ones less than a month later with his other foot."

"Holy moly. Did you get caught?"

"No, we did this a couple months after he killed poor Kitty; he never guessed, but we did sneak back out to retrieve the last one before people started to think, you know? But, like I say, the punishment always had to fit the crime, at least in severity. Mostly, we just started vicious rumours, convinced people to cheat on their boyfriends or girlfriends, that kind of stuff. Sometimes we'd do something and then frame someone else for it."

" ... Uh huh... Holy geez, Mum," I had to chuckle. "And I thought I was bad in school. Did you get into fights?"

"Not so much after people knew we'd win. We didn't screw around with slapping and pulling hair, we went totally one hundred percent, or not at all."

"You two really were pretty close, huh?"

"Very. ... Sheila failed grade one on purpose so we could be together when I started school. We used to make each other feel better when Mum was tripping out and we planned our escape from that house a million times growing up, lying in bed and playing Drawback. Then we started planning her death. Too bad Sheila turned into such a useless little whore. We would have at least saved Dad," she theorized, the smile over her good old days gone in favour of a glum frown.

" ... You- you were going to kill your mother?"

"Yes."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. It wasn't enough for Sheila, though. No, she wanted Mum to know she'd actually screwed her husband first, her own daughter taking him away from her, you know, just like Mum always accused her. Like I say, she was the inventive one, but never one to look ahead at what her decisions would create in the future. She had no appreciation for cause and effect."

" ... What would you do if she walked in the door right now?"

" ... That's a good question, honey. "I... I suppose I'd want to forgive her, but... I don't know. I'd probably beat her half to death just to keep her away from you, if not for what she did to poor Dad, too."

"It must be hard. To remember, I mean."

She only looked into her lap and nodded.

"Well, you must have had cause. You were lucky, your Mum almost ended up killing you."

"Yeah," she sighed, looking up and smiling at me again. "Life sure does have a sense of irony, huh? Hey, let's play Gran Turismo!"

She'd changed demeanor in the blink of an eye again, the old subject closed as she grabbed the remote and turned the TV on.

"Come on, put the disc in. I bought a used Guila Sport that'll blow the doors off any piddling car you have in its class."

Part 4

The Guila indeed kicked ass, much to Mum's delighted cajoling. She brought it up again as I was slipping into bed that night, it being her turn to have the wall.

"You're just mad because you're cheating didn't do you any good this time."

"Mum, I didn't cheat. How could I?"

"Yeah, you cheat, alright. That's how you won all those other races."

"Oh, sure!"

"Hee hee. I- Ohhh, sweetie pie..." she frowned, looking at my midsection.

After seeing her in her nightie again, I was already fully erect.

" ... Mu-um!" I complained, embarrassed again.

" ... You know, I have to wonder that this happens every night. I am your mother," she reminded.

"I can't help it! I keep seeing you in that nightie and..."

"And what?"

"Well... it shows more than you think, you know," I told her, quickly getting into bed. "I can't help it if my penis gets hard."

"Cock."

I looked at her questioningly and she replied, "Cock, not penis. Tits, not breasts. Pussy, not vagina. It's not the same as swearing, you know. And if it bothers you so much to see me in my nightie, you don't have to look. Do you?"

She regarded me with a raised brow as she helped me settle, my 'cock' once again pressed up against her.

"I... I'm not hot for my mother," I assured her. "It's just that you're really pretty and you've got... Uhh..."

"What?"

"Can we just drop it?"

"What have I got?"

"(sigh!) You have a really nice body. Like I said, I'm not hot for you, I just... can't help it."

She only continued to regard me, the smallest smile forming up on her lips, her brow still raised and looking at me as though I were the biggest pervert in the world. I could only look away.

"What did you ever see in her?"

" ... Staci?"

"Who else?"

"I don't know, she was cool."

"Cool? She was popular, you mean."

"Yeah, but that's not why-"

"Oh, come on!" she grinned.

"Well... She was hot and everybody else thought so, too."

"Big deal. There's a lot more to a woman than her social standing, you know. She might have looked good getting out of your Hummer, but I bet she wasn't good for much in its back seat."

"What makes you say that?"

"I could tell. She did let you fuck her, right?"

" ... Yes."

"And you used protection like I told you?"

"Yes."

"And she was going like, 'Ow, my hair! Oh, Steven, my nails!' Am I right?"

"No! It was nothing like that!"

Actually, it was almost exactly like that.

"Yeah, right. ... Hey, you remember that Smythe girl down the street? The brunette?"

"Laura? Yeah."

"That's the girl you should have been taking around."

"What?" I laughed.

"She didn't run around dressing and acting like a whore, but she had a body under those baggy clothes, and those quiet girls will do anything in bed. She'd have sucked your balls dry and then some."

I laughed, shaking my head and trying to look away, still embarrassed and uncomfortable when she spoke like that.

"It's true, believe me. And she had a nice set of tits, too. Unlike your little whore. I guess I don't have to ask if you got to fuck her tits."

"Oh my god, Mum, I just can't believe you!"

"What? Laura would've done it. Probably a whole lot more than that."

"Okay, alright, Laura was the better girl!" I surrendered, hoping it would change the subject.

"I'll tell you something else about Laura: She wouldn't have abandoned you. She'd probably be right here with us and to hell with what everybody said."

I only looked at her as I remembered figuring out why Staci suddenly had no time for me.

"That hurt, didn't it?" Mum asked.

" ... Yeah."

"I know, hon."

"I don't know why, I don't think I loved her."

"Did you think you did at the time?"

"I don't know. I mean, I didn't know. I kinda thought I did, but I could never get any clear..."

"She was on the fence about how she felt?"

"Yeah, it seemed that way."

"You were just a fad, she didn't care about you, never did. In another three months, she'd have traded you for some guy with a Corvette. That's how whores operate. I'm sorry."

" ... Well, I know one thing."

"What's that?" she asked.

"If Laura Smythe was right here with us... Wouldn't she look?"

I couldn't resist glancing at the jiggling top of her 'tits' as she laughed uproariously at this, me laughing a little as well.

"Her loss! See, you're loosening up!"

"Maybe."

"Just don't get so loose that you have a wet dream and cum all over me," she said more seriously. "We have to accept these... conditions, but... We do have to be a bit careful, don't we? Neither one of us wants to wake up with your sticky jizz all over my belly, hm?"

" ... Wow and OMG."

"I suppose you're imagining yourself cumming on me now. Pervert."

"No, I'm not!" I lied. "And I got underwear on, so-"

"Cumming a nice big load all over your poor, unsuspecting mum?"

"No!"

"I don't believe you."

"Mum!"

"Why do you look at me in this nightie if you don't feel that way? Shouldn't you avert your eyes like a gentlemen? Maybe have a little respect for Mummy?"

This was starting to make me a bit nervous because I couldn't tell if she was serious or just teasing me.

"Well?"

"I... I can't help it. You..." I told you, you have really great... tits and... nice big nipples. It doesn't mean I-"

"How do you know? You've never seen them."

"I kinda can through your nightie."

" ... That's right, I forgot. Still, you don't have to look."

"Mum, I- they're all hard and erect."

"Like now?"

"Yeah. Mum?"

"Uh huh?"

"Are you just teasing me? Cause I can't tell and I'm... I just really can't help it. You're beautiful and I'm..."

" ... I'm sorry, I am teasing you a little, but I just had to make sure this was a natural reaction from you and nothing more. Also... You know, it's like I said when I told you I'm as bad as Sheila in the hormones department and it's been a very long time for me. After I found out about your father's philandering, I wouldn't let him touch me the few times he was interested and after all this time going without cock, it's a bit of a trial for me, too. I mean, here I am with a big hard one so close to where I really want one, attached to such a good young man, such a... an attractive young man. You have a perfect body, you know."

"Wh-?"

"Didn't Staci tell you? No, of course she didn't. Well, you do and I suppose we're both a bit excited to be this close and I can't help my teasing and all. But, we do have to be careful, because... Well, you know. We're bound to have a little naughty fun that we probably shouldn't, like Drawback, but we don't want to get carried away with ourselves and each other until something very wrong happens, do we?"