Here’s another great oldie that got lost with the crash of the Board – hope you enjoy!
Hugs
Kayla
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MY MOM VS DAD'S MISTRESS
By Marie B
For the past six months, I had been hearing the word “Mistress.” It was such an exotic word and I was anxious to see what a Mistress actually looked like. Surely, she couldn’t look like a regular person, could she? Did she look like a hooker? Did she look like Tinker Bell? Like Elizabeth Hurley?
I had wanted to know, and now I was about to find out because Mom was taking me to the Mistress’ house in order to confront her.
“Lorry,” my Mom said to me as we drove to the woman’s home, “I know you are just 11 years old and you shouldn’t be exposed to things like this. I tried to keep from you the fact that your father has been seeing another woman. I wanted to protect you, but this woman is destroying our family and I’m so afraid of this coming back to hurt you if I don’t tell you about it.
All that made sense, but I secretly wondered why I was being brought along to witness the confrontation if she didn’t want to see me get hurt. Still, I wasn’t really sure what a Mistress was and I wanted to find out. I asked:
“What are you going to say to her, Mom?”
“I plan to have a polite but firm conversation with her, asking her to stop seeing your father. I plan to keep my temper in check because there is nothing to be accomplished by arguing.”
Sitting silently now, I thought about why Dad would want to have another woman when he already had my Mom. I looked her over…..she was 40 years old, pretty in a wholesome way and always pleasant to be around. At 5’7, she had a slight weight problem at 150 pounds but was actually in pretty good shape from years of exercise. She was able to beat me at tennis and was continually surprising me with how strong she was; lifting heavy objects, and so on. I hoped this meeting wouldn’t come down to a fight because my Mom would hurt the Mistress and would probably get in trouble for doing so.
As we arrived at the Mistress’ high-rise apartment, I was struck by the luxury of the place and figured that a Mistress must be a pretty lucrative thing to be. Was Dad chipping in for the rent?
We rode the elevator to her floor and as we stood before the door, I noticed the nameplate that said the Mistress first name was Lena. She, of course, didn’t know we were coming, so I expected she would be startled when she opened the door and saw us. Instead, Lena peered out at us and a resigned half-smile appeared on her face.
“I knew I’d be meeting you sooner or later, Mary,” said Lena to my Mom. “Come on in.”
“How do you know who I am?” asked Mom, shakily.
“Your husband has a picture of Lorry and you on his desk at work.” answered Lena.
“You’ve been to his office?” asked Mom, clearly taken aback.
Lena sighed and gestured Mom and me into the apartment. It was obviously not the first time she had been involved in a scene like this.
I studied Lena as we walked in. The first thing that struck me was the way she carried herself: with elegance and grace. Each movement of her body was precision. She was pretty, not beautiful. But that air of elegance made her appear beautiful. I noticed Lena’s build…..she was two inches shorter than Mom and weighed about 30 pounds less. Her body had a willowy look and I decided that if this meeting did get physical, my Mom would easily dispose of Lena. She looked positively fragile next to Mom.
Further examining Lena, I wasn’t impressed with how she was dressed. I had expected a Mistress to be decked out in jewelry and fancy clothes. Instead, Lena sported no ornamentation, she wore cut-off jeans, a T-shirt, and she was barefoot. What happened to the high heels? What happened to the Laura Ashley dress?
While wondering about that, I inspected the residence. It was a luxurious but tastefully decorated studio apartment. It sported two couches, a shag rug, a fireplace, and a bar with an extra long counter. Very nice.
Lena asked us to sit down. Without complying, Mom asked her;
“Do you know what you are doing to my family? Do you care?”
“You wives always blame the other woman,” sighed Lena, “It never occurs to you that if your husband wasn’t seeing me, he would be seeing someone else. Let’s cut to the chase. You’re here to ask me “nicely” to stop the affair, right?”
“Yes,” answered Mom.
“And you’ve brought your pretty little daughter along to show me the family that I’m breaking to bits by seeing your husband, right?”
“Yes,” said Mom, a little unnerved at having Lena see through her motivations so easily.
“I’ve seen this many times before, although I admit that the wife usually doesn’t show up unannounced at my doorstep.”
The casualness of Lena’s attitude was starting to get under Mom’s skin. It was plain that Lena was not interested in the problems she was causing and was simply looking for an easy way to get Mom and me out of the apartment. Once that was done, Lena would probably call Dad and insist that he deal with his own problems and keep the rest of his family off her back.
Mom had never been a violent person. I couldn’t remember a time she ever struck me. But I knew her well; knew her moods, knew what pressed her buttons…..and I could see that she was measuring Lena up. After a moment, she apparently decided that the Mistress represented no physical threat to her.
Lena started to say something, then……incredibly and insultingly, she brought her hand up to cover her mouth, stifling a yawn. She couldn’t hide the fact that this meeting was boring her.
Mom’s mouth dropped open at this sight. She couldn’t believe the nonchalance being displayed by the person who was wrecking her life. Instinctively, Mom cocked her fist and threw a hard right hand punch to Lena’s mouth.
It landed cleanly. Lena never expected it. She had been standing against the back of the couch and the punch sent her sprawling over the headrest, bouncing off the seat cushion and onto the floor.
All three of us were shocked. Mom gestured to me that I was to stay out of this. Lena was getting up, holding her hand to her mouth and staring at Mom, who stared back….and then Mom started to smile.
“I see that asking you to stay away from my husband will do no good,” stated Mom. “It never occurred to me to beat the message into you, but maybe that’s exactly the way to handle this.”
As Mom stood there thinking about this, it was easy to guess her thoughts. Although she didn’t approve of violence and had made an initial attempt to solve the problem with words, it could be that the way to stop a common home-wrecker was to beat the cheating ways out of her. This thought was augmented by the fact that it looked like it wouldn’t take much effort for Mom to beat Lena into submission. After all, she had sent Lena flying over the couch with one punch, hadn’t she?
As Lena held her mouth and glared at Mom, she could guess the wife’s thoughts, too. Lena’s shock and pain turned to a burning anger. She was thinking…”Look at Mary. She’s a typical wife who can’t understand why her husband would wander. Here she is, unattractively dressed in jeans, a sweatshirt and Nikes’….a butch outfit that she’s too old to be wearing. Does she think her husband is going to find her attractive, looking like that? And her weight!…she’s not amazingly fat or anything, but she bulges in the wrong places and looks downright sloppy. She stomps into my place with her belligerent attitude and expects to talk me out of doing what I want to do. These little wifeys never understand, do they? I take what I want and then discard it when I’m done. I wouldn’t even want her husband for that long. Only as long as he spends the big bucks on me. After I dump his ass, he would go back to his family and be contrite and apologetic, looking for forgiveness. She will take him back again…..although neither of them is a bargain to treasure.
