Win for Life

She had conceived four children in her lifetime. Three had been born healthy, the first stopped beating its heart at 14 weeks and had been taken from her by vacuum.

Now the three surviving children were fully grown and stood at her bedside in an annoyed silence.

"I told you this would happen again, " the middle child said.

The other two stood silent and still. The oldest, stood silent, picking cuticles until one finally bled. The youngest let a few heavy sighs out while staring blankly out the window.

On the bed she lay. The sheets pulled up and tucked neatly under her long, drawn breasts. Her arms stretched out on top of the white sheet. Her lips pursed, bright pink lipstick stuck deep in the creases of her mouth, her hair was tangled and matted on the back of her head and a lipstick stained cigarette had been smoked down to the filter in the ashtray next to the bed.

"What time did you leave this morning?", the youngest asked the oldest.

"9:15."

"And you got back?"

"3:30."

The youngest looked at the clock. It was 4:15.

"Well?" said the middle one, "What do you propose we do?"

From the bed came a long deep sigh, dramatically heaving her bare breasts in front of her children. "You do whatever you like," she said and reached for the cigarettes on the nightstand. The bedroom was large and held little furniture. It never would. She liked her bedroom to remain sparse. The summer breeze gently moved the sheer curtains. The walls were a powder blue. Her bed was custom made and featured a unique brushed steel headboard. The floor had no carpet.

Although she had recently moved into her eldest child's home, each of the children lived very well. When their mother was just 34 years old and the two oldest were already in high school and the youngest in the 7th grade, she had won a scratch off game. The prize: $7,000.00 a week for life.

All four benefitted from the winnings. Moving from a hot crammed third-floor walkup in the gentrified section of the city to a large townhome in a sought after location. For the older two the winnings came too late in life to affect their education much, but for the youngest the move came just in time and a college education was in the future.

Each of them though would struggle with addiction over the years but as two decades passed  the children, now adults, managed to carve out meaningful, respectable lives. Between the 3 of them there had been 6 marriages. There were no grandchildren. On the occasion that pregnancy occurred it was taken care of swiftly and early and at the bargain cost for $500. After all raising children is expensive.

Their young mother, should she live to be 90, would be paid in excess of $20,340,000 in winnings since the day she scratched that winning ticket just 4 weeks after her 34th birthday.  The only way she would stop receiving them was if she died or went to prison.

Now at 54 years old she had grown forgetful, after some significant episodes the doctors said it was dementia, the result of years of heavy drinking. And so just 4 months earlier she had moved into her oldest child's home.

Their mother was a whore. She proudly admitted it. She came to the realization herself when, at the age of 12, her older brother came into her bedroom for the first time. 

That first night it hurt, she bled. He held his hand over her mouth. She had bit him twice and he just pushed his hand down harder over mouth. She held her legs together tightly and the two of them quietly squirmed and struggled under the comforter, him with his underwear around his ankles and a t-shirt on and her in a nightgown. After a short while she found that if she stopped struggling he would loosen his hand on her mouth and she could breathe more. It was then that he slipped inside her. That was her first time. When he was done he kissed her, on the mouth, deeply and left her alone. She never told.

Over the next 2 months he would come into her room 8 times and he began to give her little winks and affectionate pats on the behind around the house. She loved the attention. She would go to sleep at night and wonder if he would come to her, if he would kiss her again when he left. If he maybe really loved her.  One night her brother had a friend sleep over, and to prove how much she loved him, she quietly snuck into his room, laid on her back on his bedroom floor and let him inside her while she took his friend into her mouth.  

She was by all accounts damaged. A whore who loved her job. She did not know the fathers of her children, although she took pride in knowing they all where 100% white, just like "daddy would like it" she used to say. She was a prostitute, a hooker, a slut, a whore but she wouldn't fuck a black guy for any amount of money. She was "old south" when it came to that. "There are just somethings a lady should never do," she would say. She held true to the morals and values she had heard her daddy and grandpap talked about growing up.

Walking around the king size bed in the sunlit room the oldest one said, "What is this?"

Exhaling her cigarette while still neatly tucked under the sheets she said, "I don't know. Maybe 14?"  and with that she slowly rose nude from the bed and walked across the room, cigarette between her fingers. Lube and semen made her inner thighs shine.

The other two began to undo the bed sheets at the mattress corners. The oldest made the sign of the cross and said, "Sorry 14. Today is not your lucky day," and then using two hands pulled a large knife out of the chest of the man who had lay dead for several hours now next to their mother. 

"Ma, when you're done rinsing off, bring the paper towel," the middle one said.

Moments later she came out of the bathroom, still nude and with a damp paper towel and began to wipe blood off the brushed steal headboard.

"Thanks for you help," the oldest said.

"We won't be able to do much with him till dark," said the youngest. The body had now been rolled into the bed sheets. The headboard was cleaned and the plastic wrap on the mattress was doing a fine job of containing the blood so the floor was in good shape. "Ma, you want to get dressed and go for an early dinner?" said the middle one.

"That sounds nice," she said, still standing nude in the middle of the room. "I have this nice new dress I've been wanting to wear. You boys always know how to take care of mama." and with that she took a drag of her cigarette, ashed it on the floor and strolled to the walk in closet.