Chapter 1
Hi, my name is Mark. I live with my mother Monica, and I recently graduated from high school and celebrated my eighteenth birthday. I am pretty much average in most ways, except maybe for math, which has always come very easy to me. After living in Charleston, South Carolina all my life, I have been trying to decide whether to attend school in Kentucky, something that my mom wasn’t too crazy about, or to stay home and go to school locally. I have been accepted at several schools and am in the process of making a decision.
I am not sure why mom isn’t too wild about my going off for school, but my guess is that since dad walked out on her 11 years ago, she sees my leaving as well, just another man leaving her high and dry. She seems to take everything in stride, but somehow I feel she is a little outdone by it all.
Anyway, my math skills landed me a really good job with a large accounting and tax service. It was a good thing too, because mom had sacrificed her career for my father’s and she had wound up working as a waitress. Fortunately, the house was paid off with the divorce settlement.
Currently I was enjoying two paid weeks off during the service’s annual summer vacation shut down, and in between hitting the golf course and swimming pool was doing as little as possible. Today I had played golf early and had returned from the pool just after lunch time.
I walked in the door and called, “Mom, I’m home.”
’I’m in the kitchen.”
South Carolina summer days can get well into the 90′s and today was no different. My trunks had dried on the short walk home from the pool at our apartment complex and I was already sweating again. I wiped some of the moisture off my torso and face and tossed the beach towel in the hamper before going into the kitchen. Mom was slicing some tomatoes to go with the chicken salad sandwiches she was making. She was standing by the counter that doubled as a cutting board wearing a white cotton bra and a white silk half slip. I could see the outline of a pair of full cut white panties under her slip.
Mom was only 37 years old and had a great body, but she seemed oblivious to that; in fact, it was as though she went out of her way to dress as conservatively as possible. She was starting to get the occasional gray hair, but she seemed not to notice. Usually, she kept her hair pulled back, sometimes in a pony tail. Both styles had the effect of giving her a cute appearance, but hid her true beauty. And while her lack of concern for appearance might be seen positively as a denial of narcissism, which is at some level sexy in and of itself, in her case it seemed to be more a matter of her lowered self-esteem.
Mom’s routine was always the same: She slept late, rose and took a shower, dressed in her panties, bra, slip, and thigh high nylons. Then she would prepare a light lunch, iron her uniform, put on her shoes, and leave for work. She worked the 3 to 11 shift feeling that she could make better tips during the evening meal.
We had a spare bedroom in the house off the kitchen that had a bed, a comfortable couch, and a television. Mom had the ironing board set up in that room and usually watched television while she ironed. Since the room was not normally in use, she liked the convenience of being able to leave everything in place for the next day.
Mom made a sandwich for each of us while I made us a glass of iced tea. She looked a little preoccupied and was quietly contemplating her sandwich. Looking at her, I thought about how she and her five sisters looked so much alike, except for her sister Mae, of course. Mae was so beautiful it hurt to look at her. She had long, dark hair, a perfect aristocratic face, green eyes, and pouty lips, and a body that was amazing. She wore short shorts which showed off a set of killer legs and a round firm ass that drew your eyes like a bee to honey. The rest of the girls, including mom were all around 5′5" with hourglass figures, auburn hair, blue eyes, and pretty faces. They all looked a little like Ashley Judd or Charlize Theron, but all six of the girls spent lots of time together and were always overshadowed by Mae’s startling beauty. Next to her, they had all seemed somehow just pretty. Now, sitting across from my mother Monica, I suddenly realized how beautiful she had become in spite of her clear lack of concern about her appearance. Some women get better looking as they age, and mom was one for whom the years had been wonderfully kind. I couldn’t help but chuckle as I thought that I had lived with someone for 18 years and had never truly noticed her.
Monica was jolted from her own thoughts by the sudden chuckle. “What’s so funny?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing mom, I was just thinking about something that seemed a little strange.”
“Come on, tell me,” she implored. “I could use a good laugh.”
“I wasn’t thinking about anything funny. I was really just thinking about something ironical and how unobservant I sometimes am.”
Mom continued to pry, determined to share in my secret. Finally, after a long back and forth I gave in to her prodding.
“Okay, okay. If you must know, it struck me as funny that I have lived in the same house with you all my life and had just now noticed how beautiful you are.”
Monica was momentarily speechless. She tilted her head a little to the side as though she had not heard him quite correctly and then blushed pink. I thought for a minute that I had stepped over some imaginary line and that she might be angry at what I had said. Finally, her eyes softened and she whispered emotionally, “Honey, I think that may be the sweetest thing anyone has said to me in years.”
Her words caused me to blush at her pleasure, but just as quickly it struck me that while she meant what she had said as a compliment, I had been remiss in telling her how grateful I was for the things she had sacrificed for me.
She looked down at her watch and said, “I have to iron my uniform. Why don’t you keep me company?”
“Sure,” I said. “Give me a minute to clear the table and I will be right there”.
