Series on Display: Sins of Women
Chapter Two: The Empress:
The first woman to set me on this path is my mother. She pretty much shaped my life with women when I was growing. Our house was pretty much her kingdom. My sister and I were her loyal subjects. I label her as the empress because she is as such in my life. In her younger days, she looked like a queen. She grew up as the center of attention. My mother just had to have all eyes on her. She wasn’t the type of woman who was took no for an answer. That went to her children.
It’s a wonder she could never hold onto a boyfriend for long. Every man in her life eventually got fed up with her and left. I wished I could’ve done the same thing. Okay, let me back up a little bit. My mother grew up in poverty. On top of that, she was the youngest of nine girls. Naturally, she wanted to be a queen. From the age of three, she viewed herself as a princess. Her father first placed this notion in her head. He called her his little princess. From there, the legend of the empress was born.
Everywhere she went, that woman commanded attention. It didn’t help that her father gave her anything that she wanted. Her mother naturally didn’t enjoy this.
“Honey,” she told him, “You can’t keep spoiling Anita like this.”
“Aw, it’s already,” he brushed off, “It’s not too much.”
“But honey, she’s starting to act like a little princess,” the mother said.
“That’s because she is one,” her father said. My mother overheard them talking in the hallway and it stuck with her ever since. In a way, her father created a spoiled monster. This monster only grew as she got older.
Over the years, my mother had so many admirers. Her looks and charm made it hard for them to resist her. Her grades might have been average or she wasn’t good in sports, but she didn’t care. All of the guys wanted her and that was all that mattered to her. Even after she married my father, they wouldn’t stop coming. She indulged in all of their love. As a result, a string of affairs didn’t end during her first and only marriage. My mother had her first boyfriend when she was twelve years old. He was an American boy with rich parents that owned a company on this very island. He spoiled her in ways that her father couldn’t. My mother never saw riches before in her life prior to meeting Richie. So, imagine the surprised look on her face when he gave her a ruby and gold ring. Her eyes looked like they would pop out her hand.
“Is this… for me?” she asked.
“Yes,” her boyfriend told her. She didn’t know what so say. Pretty soon, he showered her with pricey gifts and attention. Even after he moved away, mother’s quest for the finer things in life didn’t end. Endless numbers of boyfriends in high school had to get expensive things to win her heart. They made her happy for a short while, but after a while it began to bore her. My mother wanted something different for a change. One day during her senior year, my father came along.
He was a year and a grade younger than my mother. My father grew up poor as well. In fact, he lived in the same neighborhood as my mother. His father worked on a sugar cane field. His mother died when he was a little boy. My father had always admired my mother, but never could get close to her. She seemed a whole world away from him. Many times he wished that he could get close enough to talk to her. Finally at a school dance, that chance came. So many boys after my mother out, but she turned them down. For some reason I don’t understand, my father thought that he shot with her. He found her eating with her friends near the gym. She looked up and saw him.
“Yeah?” my mother asked. My father shuffled his feet.
“I might not have much to give you,” he said, “But please be my girlfriend.” Her friends laughed at him. However, my mother narrowed her eyes at him.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I like you,” he said.
“Uh-huh…” she muttered.
“But it’s true,” my father insisted. My mother finished her drink.
“We’ll see,” she sharply. That usually meant, “no” from my mother, but my father didn’t see it that way at the time. He refused to give up on dating her. Her friends came to find him creepy.
“He’s a stalker,” one of them complained to her. However, my mother sought out a way to make him stop. She posed a little bargain for him.
“I will go out with you if you stop following me around,” she said. My father looked at her with big eyes.
“You mean it?” he asked. My mother sighed and rolled her eyes.
“Yes,” she groaned. He took her with him to the dance. Her parents were surprised to see him come up to the door. They knew over her much richer boyfriends in the past. The looks in their eyes told him of this. He smiled and gave them a nervous nod.
“I’m here for Anita,” he said. Her father called her out to the living room. The frown on my mother’s face told him that she just wanted to get this night over with. My father gave her a kind smile.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
“Whatever,” she muttered under her breath. He walked her out of the door like a lady. To her surprise, she enjoyed her night with him. My parents dated through the rest of senior year and kept in touch throughout college. On her twentieth birthday, my father proposed to her and she said yes. Two years later, they married. Despite the happy surface, the once-happy couple began to crumble. By the time I was four years old, my father gave up on my mother’s selfish and controlling ways and left. Lucky for him, but he left me to deal with the mighty empress herself.
After the divorce, my mother became emotionally unstable. I couldn’t remember a time when each one of her boyfriends could become a new step-father to me. Luckily, they all were fed up with her and escaped. Again, that left me to pick up the pieces after her. I became aware of my situation when I found her sitting in the bathroom crying with a bottle of red wine in her hand at the age of seven. I slowly closed the door behind me, blinking.
“Mommy, why are you crying?” I asked. She looked up at me with big tears in her eyes.
“Oh, baby,” she whimpered as she held out her arms to me. I wondered over and she squeezed me against her heavy bust. She broke down crying again. “Men are terrible people,” she wailed. I looked at her with big, confused eyes.
“Am I… terrible, mommy?” I asked. I could smell the French perfume on her skin as she shook her head.
“No,” she said, “You’re my good little boy, my darling, precious boy.” She then looked me straight in the eye. I felt her sharp, red nails dig into my tiny arms. “Promise me,” my mother said, sternly, “Promise me that you won’t turn into a terrible man. Stay my sweet, darling boy forever!” I looked at her, uncertain of what she was saying.
“Mommy?” I asked.
“Promise me!” she pleaded.
“Okay…” I said. She squeezed against her breasts again.
“Very good,” my mother whispered, “I knew that would always be my sweet darling little boy!” That promise on that day set me down on a path to my troubles with women.
Sins of Women
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