Well, That Backfired 2_(0)

SIERRA

The moans and screams of my teenage daughter flow from her open bedroom window and into the backyard. The neighbors give me amused expressions while I hurriedly run to the back door and fumble with the keys. I flush beat-red with embarrassment as I battle the door’s broken latch to the soundtrack of Laurie wailing her ecstasy above me. I curse under my breath and wrestle with the stubborn metal, feeling the neighbor’s judging eyes taking me in. This wouldn’t be nearly as bad if Laurie kept it down, but holy shit, she’s a screamer! Was I ever that obnoxious in high school? Yeah, I definitely was, but at least I had the wherewithal to close the fucking window!. I grit my teeth and finally manage to spring the fucking latch. I swing the backdoor open and run up the stairs. Her screams subside as I reach the top step, and I take a moment to breathe and collect myself. I assume her and Ryan have heard my rapid ascent up the steps, and are now hurriedly getting beneath the covers. I’m not the kind of mom who barges into her daughter’s room when I know she’s in the act, so I wait until she’s had enough time to cover up. After a painful minute, I figure I’ve waited long enough, so I put on my best mom-face, and grasp the door knob.

“How hard is it to close your fucking-” the words stop dead in my throat. Apparently, they hadn’t heard me coming up the stairs; and by “they,” I mean Laurie, her best friend, Eleanor, and her brother, Tom. My son, Tom. They’re all naked, all lying on the bed, and all staring at me with the same expression of horror that’s on my face. Actually, Eleanor’s expression is more of amusement than anything.

“Hey, Mrs. B!” she laughs jovially at me, “You know, knocking is usually the polite thing to do.”

I open my mouth to say something, but the words stick in my throat. I simply stare from Laurie, to Tom. Laurie’s gaze falls almost immediately, but Tom stares back. His shocked expression has relaxed into a cold, hard, gaze. It’s a look I’ve never seen him wear before; it almost says “so, we’re fucking; what are you going to do about it?” It’s disturbing, but this whole goddamn situation is disturbing. No, “disturbing” is the wrong word for it; this is a family-ruining, life-destroying, you-failed-so-hard-as-a-mother, catastrophe. My heart sinks slowly into my chest as the realization weighs on me. I open my mouth to say something, anything, but there’s nothing to be said. There’s no magical combination of words that can fix this. I give my children a final, dismayed look, step into the hallway, and close the door.

ELEANOR

Oh, man; this is just too good! Tom and Laurie are staring at each other, their faces communicating their horror in stark detail. I’m nestled between them, enjoying the warmth of their bodies almost as much as I’m enjoying their discomfort. In case you haven’t realized this about me, I’m a twisted, sexual deviant. I need the wrong and the extreme to really get me off. I was worried that after Tom seduced Laurie, the two would start a boring, brother-sister romance. Once you get passed the taboo of the relationship, there’s really nothing that special about two related teenagers fucking each other… unless they get caught. Well, they’ve been caught, and by the worst person possible. Now, the possibilities really open up.

“Tom,” Laurie whispers to her brother in a shaking voice, “what the fuck are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Tom says grimly, though his voice doesn’t bare any of Laurie’s fear, “this is… really fucked.”

“Should we…” Laurie gulps, “should we move away together? You’re already almost in college, and Lincoln isn’t too far away. I could move out with you and still finish my senior year.”

“That’s an idea,” Tom muses, “I’d have to transfer out of the dorms and get an apartment, but we could do it.”

“You guys are pussies!” I laugh, catching the Baker siblings by surprise. They seemed to have forgotten I was here, and I demand to be noticed. “You guys are just going to bail on your single mother and leave her here alone? What kind of children are you?!”

“She’ll never speak to us again!” Laurie hisses, “She’ll kick us out anyway!”

“You don’t know that,” I reply, “you have no idea what’s going through her head right now.”

“I think we have a pretty good idea of what she’s thinking,” Tom says, and then brushes a strand of red hair over my ear and looks me in the eye, “but enlighten us, Ellie; what is she thinking?”

“That this is all her fault,” I say, “parents never blame their children for their actions; they always blame themselves. And right now, you two are planning on abandoning her. How do you think she’ll take that?”

I see the shame begin to spread across Laurie and Tom’s faces, and I smile internally. Manipulation has always been my greatest art, and today, I have a chance to paint my masterpiece.

“She’s right,” Tom says to Laurie, “we can’t leave her; she’ll blame herself for everything.”

“But what do we do?” Laurie says softly, the fear leaving her voice, and the sadness taking over, “How can we look her in the eye after this?”

“I could talk to her,” I say in my best ‘I’m just trying to help’ voice, “I could be the intermediary for the three of you, and smooth things out before you meet.”

“That’s an idea,” Tom says, “she’s known you your entire life, and you’re Laurie’s best friend; she’d be willing to speak honestly to you.”

“Can you do it?” Laurie asks me, her eyes full of hope.

“Sure, I can,” I smile easily, “I’ll get her calm and collected, and then the four of us will have a nice, long, talk. Once she gets over the shock of it all, she’ll accept the situation, and you guys can move on as a happy family.”

“You make it sound so easy.” Tom mutters incredulously.

“I can be very persuasive,” I smile wickedly to him, “as you two well know.”

Tom smiles at that. He glances over my head at Laurie, and Laurie nods.

“Ok,” Laurie says, and smiles for the first time, “sounds like a plan. Thank you, Ellie.”

“It’s nothing,” I laugh, shaking my hand in dismissal, “you two get dressed, and come when I call for you. This’ll all blow over in a week at the most.”

I get off the bed, making a show of stretching and shifting my hips for the Bakers. I glance casually over my shoulder, and smile when I see them both gawking; it seems Laurie has developed quite the taste for the fairer sex. I slip on one of her signature cut-off tops, and cram my full ass into a pair of her leggings. The bottom of my ample, pale, bust protrudes from the frayed hem of her tank, and her spandex stretches dangerously as it tries to contain me. I give myself a once-over in the mirror, and then walk out the door without a look back. I strut across the hallway to Mrs. Sierra Thomas Baker’s room and smile to myself. God, that was easy. Puh-lease, Tom; do you really think I’m going in there to fix the beautiful mess I created? Do you really think this ends in a wholesome, normal, family? Laurie is a bit naive, but you know me better. Did Da Vinci crumple up the Mona Lisa halfway through? Did Beethoven just say, ‘fuck it,’ after the first movement of Moonlight Sonata? I’ve just started my masterpiece, and now I’m going to finish it.

SIERRA

My thumb slips on the flint of my Bic as I shakenly try to light a cigarette. I haven’t had a smoke in years, but right now, I need one. What does it matter anyway? All the rules I’ve imposed on myself, all the classes I’ve taken, all the sacrifices I’ve made, all amounted to my teenage children fucking each other. Smoking in the house hardly seems like an egregious infraction now. A knock on the door nearly causes me to jump through the ceiling. I can’t see them now! I can’t look in their eyes!

“Mrs. B?” Eleanor’s voice calls from the other side of the door, “can I come in?”

I breathe a long sigh of relief, and manage to steady my hand enough to light the end of my smoke. I take a deep, sweet inhale of the addictive fire, and blow out, feeling my electrified nerves calm.

“Come in, Ellie.” I say to the door.

Laurie’s voluptuous, ginger, best-friend walks in wearing her clothes. They are way too small for her, but I guess Ellie didn’t have much in the way of options.

“Are you to be the intermediary between my children and I?” I ask her as I put the square between my lips.

“You got it,” Eleanor smiles, and gestures to the pack in my hands, “can I bum a smoke?”

I hand her a cigarette, light it between her red lips, and then sit down at the foot of the bed. She sits next to me, and we smoke in subdued silence.

“So…” Eleanor says, leaning back on the bed, “this whole thing is pretty fucked.”

“Yeah,” I concur, “but I’m guessing you don’t mind in the least,” I turn to her and give her a sharp look, “do you?”

“Oh?” Eleanor replies with a raised eyebrow, “you think this is all my fault?”

“You’ve always been a corrupting influence on Laurie,” I say, my voice brimming with rage, “and you were right in the middle of it. What am I supposed to think?”

“Sure, I was there,” Eleanor smirks, “but this was a long time coming, Sierra, and you know it.”

Eleanor stares at me with her sharp green eyes, and her gaze doesn’t falter for a moment. My eyes fall to my lap, and I feel the truth in her words sting me to the core. This was a long time coming, because I’m their mother. The hint of tears begin to well in my eyes, and I fight to push them back; I fight to convince myself that it’s not all my fault.

“So,” I say, failing to keep my voice from breaking, “you’re saying I’m a complete failure as a mother.”

“Not a complete failure,” Eleanor says, not bothering to console me, “but there were definitely some missteps.”

“Like?” I hiss venomously, staring darkly at her, “What do you know about it? What could a stupid slut like you know about raising children?”

“I’m the stupid slut?” Eleanor laughs, “I’ve heard stories about you, Sierra; you were practically a sex addict. You were a year younger than me when you had Tom, and just a bit older than me when you had Laurie. The only saving grace for you, is that you somehow managed to have them both from the same man.”

Her words are cruel and full of malice, but my anger doesn’t swell. No, she’s just telling me the hard truth. She’s not sugarcoating bullshit (something I’ve been doing for the past eighteen years), she’s laying it out as it is. My mind scrambles for a way to save face, but my reconciliatory thoughts are tangled with the harsh reality flowing from Eleanor’s red lips.

“I stopped,” I say in a shaking voice, “after Bradley left us, I didn’t go running out for someone else. I didn’t fall back on my old habits.”

“You should have,” Eleanor says, “you should have gotten someone to be their father.”

“I knew I couldn’t,” I mumble, pursing the smoke between my lips, “I had to control myself and become the mom they needed.”

“You couldn’t trust yourself to stay loyal to one man, so you forsook men all together,” Eleanor replies mercilessly, “So, instead of fixing your problem, you ran away from it.”

“I stayed abstinent through my twenties!” I growl at Eleanor, “I sacrificed the best years of my life for my children!”

“And look at the result.” Eleanor says, placing her cigarette between her lips, “all that self-denial, all that sacrifice, and how did it turn out? How noble of you, Sierra, to shackle your children to yourself.”

I stare dumbly at Eleanor, and feel the weight of her words crushing my chest. My gaze falls back to the floor, and this time, I can’t keep the tears from coming. She’s right; I should have sought help, I should have fixed myself when I had the chance. Hot, saline, water pours from my welling eyes and falls in little droplets to the carpet. The trickle becomes a flood, and before I know it, I’m reeling forward in the throes of sorrow, and spilling eighteen years of regret onto the floor. I feel a pair of soft, comforting, hands delicately touch my shoulders, and the heat of someone’s body embracing me affectionately from behind.

“Let it out, Sierra,” Eleanor whispers in my ear, “you’ve been holding in the poison for too long.”

“I knew I should have gotten help!” I cry, my diaphragm heaving in bouts of grief, “But I kept telling myself I didn’t need it!”

“And how did that effect Tom?” Eleanor whispers as her hands begin to tenderly massage my shoulders.

“I smothered him!” I cry, “I babied him well passed his age, because I didn’t want another man to leave me! Not my son!”

“And Laurie?” Eleanor asks kindly.

“I stayed distant!” I bawl, feeling the catharsis of grief-fueled release compelling the truth from me, “I didn’t want her to end up like me, so I kept her at arm’s length, when I should have held her close! Now she’s gone off and fucked her brother because it was the only way for her to find closeness in the family!”

“There, there, Sierra,” Eleanor’s sweet voice sings in my ear as she gently guides me to lie down, “admitting fault is the first step. Just relax, and let me take care of you.”

Eleanor’s hands prod me gently on my sides, and I turn over onto my stomach. She straddles me above the hips, and sinks her wonderful fingers into the congested knotting of my back. She sings a soft, soothing melody under her breath as her elegant digits work tenderly into the tense muscles. I feel more and more at ease with her, and I begin to relax, and let my guard down.

“You were a little off on your assessment,” Eleanor’s musical voice whispers, “but I can see where you’re coming from.”

“What do you mean?” I sniffle.

“Laurie didn’t seek out attention from Tom,” Eleanor says, “it was the other way around, actually.”

“Tom?” I ask incredulously, lazily raising my head just enough to look back at her. Eleanor looks up from the massage she’s giving me and nods with a crooked smile strewn across her red lips.

“Tom confessed to me that he wanted Laurie,” Eleanor says, her fingers working down my spine, “and after a little persuasion on my part, Laurie found that she wanted Tom as well.”

“I didn’t think he had it in him.” I smile sadly, and rest my cheek back on the bed, “My sweet boy…”

“Not so sweet,” Eleanor laughs melodically, “and hardly a boy any longer.”

“And Laurie’s already a woman,” I sigh, “I know it’s a cliché to say it, but it really does seem like just yesterday they were goofy toddlers, playing in the sandbox.”

Eleanor sings a soft, soothing melody that I can barely hear under her breath. The wordless lullaby floats into my ear and caresses my troubled mind as her fingers unwind the tension of my posture, leaving warm, loose muscle in their gentle wake. She sinks her thumbs beneath my shoulder blades, and graciously separates the entwined tendons between them. I feel the bridging tension of my shoulders release, and they sink easily into the bedding. She presses her palms along the arch of my spine, and slides congested muscle from bone. Warm, fluid, tingles permeate along the taut sinew of my back, until the fibers are lithe and flowing. Her fingers impress the tight reaches above my hips, and unravel the snarl of clogged fascia. She leaves me gelatinous and fluid, and I feel as though I could spill into the soft bedding from between my bones.