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Which wasn’t totally fair, it wasn’t just mindless, and they were never strangers, at least not after I got into bed with them. Sure, I usually never saw them again, but I always made a point to get to know the people I slept with, even if it was for one night. I jokingly referred to myself as an ‘intimate slut’ and sometimes an ‘old-fashioned slut.’ Which just boiled down to the fact that I liked to get to know the pretty face I was going to sleep with before I took their clothes off, even if it was only their story from the past year.
It was honestly the only way I ever felt comfortable enough to sleep with someone I technically didn’t know.
“I feel like I’m having a really uncomfortable sex talk with my mom,” I grumbled.
She rolled her eyes, finally picking up her book. “I can’t help it. I play Mom for people. It happens.”
“I have a mother,” I reminded her. “And a father.”
“And whoever said there had to be a limit on the number of parents you have, literal or honorary?” she asked before shifting her attention back to her book.
I sighed, knowing the conversation was over now she’d made her point. It didn’t matter whether I had more to say. She had said her piece. Anything after that would have been considered excuses or just delaying the inevitable in her mind.
I wasn’t going to be the one to say it, but in some ways, Sheila resembled the very same woman she had professed was a battleaxe that she could respect. Sheila was certainly a gentler woman and a more compassionate one, but there was steel in her spine, and her tongue could cut if you weren’t careful. There weren’t many people willing to argue with her when she got her mind set on something, save for me and a few other people, and even I had my limits.
So I said nothing, knowing I’d been beaten.
* * *
Ironically, my conversation with Sheila left me missing home, and I waited until my full lunch break before I made the call.
Stepping outside the building, I walked around to the smoker’s spot and plopped down. Someone I didn’t recognize sat on one of the benches, puffing away on a cigarette and not paying attention to me. I breathed in the scent of the smoke before pulling my phone out. I had quit smoking over four years before, but there was still something comforting about the smell of cigarettes, even if the taste on someone’s tongue reminded me of licking a used ashtray.
I flipped open my phone and turned on the front-facing camera to decide whether or not I’d make it just a phone call or a video. I held the phone up, turning it to see how bad I looked. At some point, I’d managed to send my auburn hair in every direction, probably from idly playing with it while I mulled over the first half of my shift. Dark rings were under my light brown eyes, and my narrow, slightly elongated features made me look like a living skeleton.
Yeah, there was no way I was making a video call to easily the most observant woman in the world. I’d stick with a standard phone call.
My mom picked up after the third ring with her usual cheery. “Hi there, Kevin. How are you doing, sweetheart?”
“I’m doing alright,” I said, leaning against the wall behind me and staring up at the sky. “How’s the summer weather treating you guys down there?”
She laughed. “Oh, you know, it’s Arizona, so stepping outside is like walking through an oven. Tony still manages to walk through it like it’s nothing and ends up looking like a Coppertone advertisement.”
I laughed. “Sounds about right.”
My father had always managed to survive any amount of scorching heat and overbearing sunlight, no matter how hot it got. It was well known that if he commented about the heat, it meant it was well and truly hot.
Diane and Tony had fostered me when I was fifteen and already well known in the system as a troublemaker. Losing my parents at the age of eight had been hard enough, and I might have been okay once I was given to my only living relative. The problem was that my maternal grandmother had never been in the best of health, and I only had four years with her before she passed. From there, I had been thrown into the system, and not all my foster homes had been as accepting and loving as my biological family’s homes or as understanding of what a child like myself had been through.
I never would know what led Diane and Tony to take on a child like me, but I wasn’t the only one. I had three other foster siblings, two before me and one after I arrived. Every single one of us were ‘trouble’ children, and we’d certainly given them their fair share of trouble.
It was only by sheer luck and the good standing Diane and Tony had with the local police that I never ended up with a felony.
“So, what brings you to my phone?” she asked.
I smiled at the sound of her voice, so warm and curious. She had always been a curious woman but incredibly independent as well. The combination left her the sort of guardian that would never be afraid to pry into the lives and thoughts of the children under her charge, but also a firm believer that they deserved their own space to grow and learn.
“Oh, Sheila got on my case a bit today,” I told her.
That made her laugh again. “Sometimes you talk about that poor woman, and I can’t tell if you love or despise her.”
“I don’t despise her, never have,” I contested hotly, then frowned. “Wait, what do you mean, that poor woman? She gives me shit, and you feel bad for her?”
“Yes, sweetheart, because she has to deal with you.”
“Wow! Thanks for that.”
Her laughter was full and throaty this time, and I could picture how she bowed forward when she laughed that hard. “Sweetheart, I adore you, and I always will. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know how much of a pain you can be when you’re in the right mood.”
