I blinked. Mrs. Gaskill was basically saying that Jennifer … my mother … was intending to be sexy … trying to get us all horny - even the women! - and that if she failed in that intent, she'd be disappointed!?
"No problem there," came a soft, feminine voice from off to my left. I looked, but couldn't identify who'd said it.
This was not my mother. Obviously, my mom had a doppelganger, right here in Flagstaff, who we'd never known about. She had to be a doppelganger, because there was no way in the world that my mother would do this.
It was then that the model's eyes drifted onto mine. They widened, and she blinked three times. Then she swallowed and opened her lips.
She looked away, though, and didn't say anything.
In those eyes, though, was the crystal clear message that she recognized me.
Dude! That was my mom!
******
"What just happened?" Mrs. Gaskill asked. I glanced at her and she was looking at … the model. "You're blushing like a newlywed. I thought you were ready for this."
"Sorry," said the contralto voice of my mother. "I was just thinking of something. I'll settle down and try not to do that again."
"To the contrary, it made you look amazing. It was the frosting on the perfect cake. Whatever it was, think of it as much as you can."
"I can't think about that for three hours," groaned Mom.
"I understand," said Mrs. Gaskill. She turned away and looked at us. "Let's get to work. Posing is difficult and tiring. Let's not make things hard on our model." she barked.
"I've got something hard for her," said the guy standing next to me.
"Don't be a dick," said a girl next to him. "She's probably somebody's mother. She might be almost old enough to be your mother."
The guy, who I would later find out was named Greg, didn't say anything else. He went to an easel and started going through the supplies on a little stand next to it. I did the same, going on autopilot, but I had no idea what I was going to do. That girl (whose name was Susan) was right. The model was somebody's mother - mine!
I honestly don't know how I got through those first three hours. I guess I could have left. I probably should have left. But part of me was no different than everybody else in the room. None of them would voluntarily walk away from getting to see that vision of loveliness. Part of it was that the only movement she made was the slight turning of her head, so that at intervals of maybe two or three minutes, she was facing each artist. When she did that, she looked at the artist, as if he or she was the only other person in the room. The connection was palpable.
She didn't flinch away from looking at me. I'm quite sure it would have taken an expert in body language to see any difference in the way she looked at me and the others. That actually helped me though, when she was looking at me, I found it difficult to stare back into her eyes. I tried to work on her facial features when it was my turn to be under the gun of her blatantly sexual gaze. You'd think I knew my own mother's face like I knew the back of my hand, but that wasn't true. I saw things I hadn't paid attention to before. She had high, pronounced cheekbones, for example, that were a complete surprise to me.
If Mrs. Gaskill hadn't been there, I'm not sure I'd have gotten started at all. I was just standing there, pencil in hand, staring at … the model … when she came up beside me.
"Start with the head," she said. "Put it about a third of the way left of the edge of the page and get the basic shape and size you want down. Then the torso. Save the limbs for last. Don't worry about the couch until you like her body. You should already know this."
"Right," I said. We had discussed this in class, with my regular teacher. She probably knew that. I suspected she knew why I was just staring at the naked woman on the dais. I had an instant little fantasy wherein Maureen Gaskill reached to find and grip my iron-hard boner, and then said, "I thought so. You already like her body, don't you, you naughty boy." That's as far as it went, though. She'd shocked me into action, so I reached to put pencil to paper. She wandered on.
Mrs. Gaskill served another purpose, then. As I made the circles, ovals, squares, and so on that blocked out the couch, and body on it, I concentrated on thinking about my guest art teacher. It didn't feel odd, because she could also have posed for Playboy with no problem. I mean I hadn't seen her nude, but s woman who took the time to look like she did probably had a great body, too, right? And I'd thought erotic things about a dozen Playboy playmates. Not only was she a beautiful woman, she was comfortably used to invading people's personal spaces as she taught. She'd gotten close enough to me on several occasions that I could both smell her flowery scent, and worry a bit about what she smelled coming from me. She wore a wedding ring, hence my knowledge that some man had already claimed her. That didn't stop me from coming up with this or that fantasy about how circumstances put us together in intimate ways. They were stupid little fantasies. Like, for instance, I'd had one where I imagined her husband was a Navy SEAL (he couldn't possibly be less manly than that) who was gone all the time. She loved him, but she had needs, and I reminded her of him. In another I was a UPS guy and I delivered a bunch of art supplies to her house. She answered the door in a loose robe and insisted I stay there while she inventoried the box. Somehow a wardrobe malfunction developed and she saw the naked (pun intended) interest in my eyes and couldn’t resist me.
As I said, they were stupid, juvenile fantasies. My mother would have been horrified by them, because they objectified Maureen Gaskill out the wazoo. But I was only eighteen months from having been a juvenile, so I didn't feel bad. And thinking of her naked helped me not think of my mother naked. As I stared at my naked mother. This was my first real taste of just how complicated life could get.
Anyway, I did get through it.
At the end of the three hours, the model got up, put her robe back on, and disappeared into a tiny dressing room in one corner of the studio. The rest of us cleaned up and packed up. As members of art lab, we had access to the studio any evening the building was open, and Mrs. Gaskill talked about what we should do between now and next Friday night, but all I could think of was my mom, in that room, putting on panties and a bra and then regular clothes.
I took my time cleaning up. I was still stiff in my pants and my mind was whirling, which may account for the fact that I didn't see her come out of the dressing room and leave. So I was the last one out when I saw her waiting for me in the darkness, by the front doors of the building. My stressed mind supplied another fantasy, one in which she had stood there smiling and shaking hands, like people do with the pastor at the end of the service on Sunday. The students all told her how beautiful she was, or what a good model she was, and how delighted they were to be able to try to capture her sexuality, and she smiled and thanked them. I had to hand it to her. She looked as unruffled as could be.
"Bobby …" she said, in her deep voice.
"What the fuck, Mom?" I gasped.
"Let's talk about this at home," she said. "Do you want a ride?"
I'd ridden my bike that day, but I could come back for it later. It was locked up and would be okay in the rack. Tonight, I wanted to go home with her. I probably wouldn't be safe on the streets anyway. I was way too distracted to pay attention to traffic.
I didn't look around as we stepped out of the building. I was going on auto pilot, just doing what she suggested I do. I had all these questions, but I didn't know where to start. Obviously my mother had a secret life I knew nothing about. For years I had read comic books about people with secret identities, and hadn't known I was living with one in real life! I was staring at her just trying to make myself believe it was really her. At this point I kind of hoped she was a doppelganger, and that somehow this would all come to make sense.
It was because I was staring at her, that I didn't see three of my classmates coming towards us.
Don, Jerry, and Phil - it wouldn't add anything to the story to supply their last names - were going to be firemen, like me. They'
d obviously been drinking and were in high spirits.
"Are we too late?" yelled Phil, alerting me to their presence. "Did we miss her?"
It turned out Don had a friend who somehow knew that the art lab that semester involved a nude study and that the model was "hot", in his words. So they, being constantly horny, had come to a decision while they were drinking, that they needed to go see this hot, nude model.
Panic seized my chest.
"Is that her?" yelled Don. "Fuck, man, she really is hot!"
"Go away!" I screamed, like a little girl.
Yeah I know. I'm embarrassed to admit it, even now. That's all I could come up with.
They stumbled on towards us. It was late, so the noise they were making didn't really draw that much attention, but my panic wasn't about who would see or hear them. It was about what they might see or hear when they got up to us. The last thing I needed was for these guys to find out that my mother posed naked for strangers. It would make an epic story, perhaps the most epic saga the fire science program had ever seen, and the instructors told some pretty crazy stories about events that had taken place over the years.
"Are these some of your friends?" asked my mother, her voice as normal as the day is long.
It was like the train wreck the engineer sees coming, but can't do anything about. We just stood there, and they kept coming. I felt my mother's hand on my elbow as Jerry surged ahead of the pack and lumbered up to stand, weaving slightly, in front of us.
"Dude!" he sighed, leaning forward slightly to peer at my mother. "She's fuckin' gorgeous!"
"Thank you," said my mother. I could hear it in her voice. She was about to laugh! How could she laugh at a time like this? This was the end of my life, for Pete's sake! I'd have to leave school. I'd have to go somewhere else, choose another profession. This story would end up bouncing around the entire industry!
Don and Phil caught up. Phil was the least drunk, apparently.
"Hey. Do you know her?" he asked. "Ricky told me the art class was painting some nude chick this year. Is this her?"
I understood exactly where that came from. She and I were the only other two people within a hundred yards and she had her hand through the crook in my arm.
"I … ah …" That's it. That's all that came from my throat.
"We're old friends," said my mother.
My head turned of its own volition and I stared at her.
"When I was fifteen and he was a baby, I took care of him," she added.
"You were his fucking babysitter?" blurted Don.
"Something like that," she said, smoothly. "He was such a cute baby. I couldn't help but fall in love with him, back then. And now he's all grown up!"
"This is fucking awesome!" groaned Jerry.
So you got to see him naked, back then," observed Phil, "and now he gets to see you naked." He grinned as if he'd said the most profound thing in centuries.
"Not entirely naked," said my mother. "I was wearing lipstick."
My head swiveled all by itself again. She was smiling, like all this was some cute little game!
"Shit, man," sighed Jerry. "I'd give my right nut to be able to see my babysitter naked."
It suddenly occurred to me that my friends had foul mouths, and were apparently incapable of carrying on a normal, polite conversation.
"Watch your fucking mouth!" I blurted. I was suddenly angry. Somehow, things had flipped. I'd been worried about what they would think when they found out about my mother. Now I was suddenly ashamed of what my mother was finding out about my friends.
"It's been delightful meeting you gentlemen," said Mom. "But Bobby and I have a lot of catching up to do, so if you don't mind, I'm going to steal him away."
"She's going to steal him away," sighed Don.
"She prolly needs to change his diaper!" yelled Jerry, gleefully.
"I have to warn you," said Phil, "His dick probably isn't much bigger than the last time you saw it." He laughed and then grinned like an idiot. That's because he was an idiot!
"We'll see," said Mom, as if he wasn't an idiot. "Are you boys going to be firemen, too?"
"Fuck yeah, we are," bragged Don.
"Well, then, you three take good care of him. He means a lot to me. I'd be devastated if he got hurt."
"She'd be devastated," sighed Don.
"We could come with you," said Phil, who seemed to sober up for an instant. "I'd love to hear stories about him as a baby."
"No, no," said my mother, squeezing my arm. "I want him all to myself."
"She wants him all to herself," sighed Don. "Fuck me to tears."
I was about to yell at them again when she said, just as cool as you please, "I don't think so. In my experience, drunk men don't make very good lovers."
She tugged my arm and led me towards the parking lot.
"You boys be good, now," she said, over her shoulder.
In our EMT training, we learned that some of the symptoms of shock are; rapid, shallow breathing, dizziness, weakness, anxiety, staring eyes, sweating and confusion. I had all those symptoms as my mother put me in her car and started it up. I didn't need medical treatment, though. I just needed time.
She drove for what seemed like twenty minutes before she said anything. I'm sure it wasn't that long. It's only a ten minute ride to our house from campus. Then again, we didn't go straight home. She stopped at a liquor store on the way.
"You stay here. I'll be right back," she said.
Yes, that's the first thing she said after we left the parking lot. There was no explanation, no motherly expression about how things would be fine and for me not to worry. Instead, the first thing she said to me was to tell me to stay in the car.
I finally had a chance to gather some thoughts. My heart rate slowed and colors looked more clear. She was back in almost no time, with the ubiquitous long, tall, brown paper bag clutched in her hand. She put it in the trunk for some reason and then got into the car. She didn't start it, but turned sideways to face me.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't think you'd find out."
"How could I not find out?" I asked.
"You didn’t tell me you were taking art," she pointed out. "You didn't tell me anything about what classes you're in."
"I guess not," I admitted.
"I know boys pull away from their mothers," she said. "It's still painful."
"I'm not trying to pull away from you," I said.
"Really? After tonight you must hate me."
"Mom, I couldn't possibly hate you," I said. Worry stabbed into me. My mom was the only person in the world who I really trusted. She'd taken care of me through thick and thin and I knew it hadn't been easy. She'd sacrificed unimaginably for me and I loved her more than anybody else on Earth.
"Not even after tonight?"
"I was just shocked, that's all," I said. "I'm still trying to understand."
She started the car and backed out. She didn't explain anything.
"Seat belt," I reminded her, after the dinging of the dashboard didn't seem to register.
She got her seat belt fastened and stared straight ahead. Home was only a few minutes away and there was still a strained silence as we got out of the car and went in. She pulled a bottle of sour mash whiskey from the bag and opened it. She took a hit straight from the bottle and I heard her gulp.
This was new. I'd seen my mom have a cocktail now and then. Usually she drank screwdrivers, and then only one, while she watched NCIS or something.
"Can I have some of that?" I asked.
"No," she said, automatically. "You're too young."
"But not too young to see you naked, showing off everything you have," I said.
She sat down in her recliner and took another hit from the bottle. She was drinking way too much and way too fast.
"You must think I'm a slut," she said.
I almost laughed. Almost. The last person I'd think of as a slut was my mother. As far as I knew, she'd never been on a date in her life. S
he never brought men home, and never stayed out overnight, unless she was at some real estate convention. Even then she called me every night. If she was slutting it up in some hotel, she wouldn't be calling her son while she did it, right?
"You're not a slut," I said.
"I was in high school," she said. "That's why I ended up pregnant with you."
She tipped the bottle up again.
"Mom," I said, gently, "give me the bottle. I'm not going to drink any. You're just going too fast. You'll get sick."
"I just wanted to make some mad money," she moaned. "I didn't think it would hurt anything. I almost chickened out, but Maureen said it would be fine."
"You know Mrs. Gaskill?" I asked, taking the bottle from her fingers. About a third of it was gone. Turns out my mother can knock them back with the best of them!
"We're in Pilates together," she said.
I knew my mom belonged to a gym. She'd gotten a deal because she sold the owner a house. I knew she went religiously, and I'd known it kept her in shape. Now I knew just how much shape it kept her in.
"How about that?" I said.
"So you don't hate me?"
I got down on my knees in front of her chair.
"Mom, I love you. I'll always love you. Stop worrying about that."
She scooted forward and I got a somewhat awkward hug.
"You're the best thing that ever happened to me," she said. And suddenly she was crying.
If you want to destroy a big, tough fireman, just hug him and cry. We turn into bunny rabbits. Or something. Something soft and weak.
"He was such a bastard," she cried into my neck, "but he gave me you."
I realized she was talking about my father. This was something else new. She never talked about my father. I'd asked her about him several times, and each and every time she replied, "I don't think about him, and I don't talk about him. He will never be in your life."
"What about my father?" I asked, thinking she might be off guard enough to let some kind of information spill.
A Model Mother Page 2