I got home a couple of days before Christmas Eve, and spent a little of the pre-Christmas time with mom and dad, most of it at the ranch. Somehow, mom didn´t seem to notice I wasn´t wearing a bra, and I tried not to wear anything that would make her notice.
I told Aunt Bessie and Beth all about the study group and our guys and the horses and the business. I had brought a folder of copies Alex made of Will´s drawings, the nudes of me, some of the erotic stuff. I gave Aunt Bessie a color copy of one of Will´s nudes of me as a Christmas present. I had another present for her I could let mom see.
Beth liked the erotic pictures best. Aunt Bessie loved all of it, especially the horses. The drawings of The Bay especially. We talked about how to get him over his fear of ropes, and spent hours talking about every aspect of Western Pleasure Riding. I told them a lot about Will and his love of horses and erotica. I promised to bring him to the ranch.
Dan arrived home. Seems he´s changed his mind a bit and instead of engineering or whatever, he´s planning to be a working rancher after all. The reason is Consuela Hermanos, just over five feet of Hispanic beauty from New Mexico. He´s crazy about her. She was due to come to the ranch for Christmas with her folks. She´d already been there at Thanksgiving with her folks and Beth had come to know and really like her. So either Beth will run Bessie´s ranch and Dan will end up on the Hermanos spread or something, but it´s a positive thing all around.
Mom and dad and I went to Aunt Bessie´s for Christmas dinner. We met the Hermanoses, who were good-looking, comfortable ranch people. Christmas dinner was the family, mom and dad and I, los tres Hermanos, Jesse and the hands.
Consuela was just what Dan had said, tiny and lots of fun. I liked her instantly and we talked together through dinner like a couple of magpies. When the hands left the table, Beth and I excused ourselves to do the dishes. Consuela came with us, started helping out like any good, ranch-raised girl. We chattered while we worked. Made me feel really good that Dan had found someone who would really fit into their life-style.
After the kitchen was cleaned up, Consuela said to Beth, “Did you mention to the boys that we might drop by?”
“Yes, I did. Mary? Want to see how Johnny, Manuel and Paul are feeling about now?”
I wanted nothing more, so we went out the kitchen door toward the bunkhouse. When we got there, the three guys were playing cards. Consuela took off her shirt. Beth and I stripped, too. When Consuela took off her jeans and panties, she was a dream.
“Cut the deck, guys,” she said. “Alphabetical order – high man gets Beth for firsts. Second card gets me.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying ourselves in front of the bunkhouse fire, on the sofa, or in one of their beds.
Late that evening, I drove home with mom and dad, went to sleep alone again. God, how I´ve come to hate that.
Three or four days after Christmas, I came back from a day at the ranch and climbed the stairs to my room. It was snowy and I was cold and tired from riding all afternoon. I wanted a long, hot shower. By the time I walked into my room I had my shirt half off. My mother was in my room, the folder of Will´s drawings in her hand.
“Slut!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Whore!” her eyes were wild. She raised the folder of drawings, waved them at me.
“Ungrateful, disgusting bitch!” she raved. “I´ve spent my life trying to keep you clean...” she slammed the folder on the dresser, “and as soon as you get out of my sight you turn into the Whore of Babylon.”
She came toward me waving the folder above her head. I fastened my shirt. As soon as she came into the hall, I slipped into my room and locked the door.
“Filthy bitch! Ingrate! Ungrateful whore.” she howled outside the door, hammering on it with the folder.
I started putting my clothes and stuff into my suitcase as fast as I could. She stood outside the door screaming at the top of her lungs.
“You show yourself to men, don´t you, you whore? You spread your dirty legs for them.”
I picked up the phone and called a taxi. Then I finished packing. My mother hammered and raged outside my door, calling me every foul thing she could think of.
When I saw dad´s car come in the driveway, I waited until I was sure he was in the house and opened the door. Mom was just attacking it again and nearly hit me. I ducked and ran down the stairs with my suitcase. My father was standing there looking confused. Mother came down the stairs behind me.
“This whore, this piece of filth! Stop her! I´m going to make her pay for destroying all my work, my prayer. She is disgusting, lewd, filth.” She bore down on me, holding the folder like an axe. I stepped behind dad.
Dad took off his coat and threw it to one side. Mother was in front of him, looking for a way to get at me.
“Lucinda Brown Travis!” he said, in what I think they call the voice of command. I had never heard him speak like that. Not loud, not shouting. But you could not miss his words or his meaning.
“Lucinda Brown Travis, give me that book.” Her wild eyes opened wider.
“Never. You cannot know what a disgusting bitch you spawned on me! I will punish her for her lewdness, her ungodliness. She is not chaste!”
“Give me the book. Now.” Astonished, she gave him her only weapon.
“Go and sit in the living room until I come for you. I must help our daughter.” Mother hesitated.
“Do as I say. Now.” She turned and walked into the living room.
Dad took me in his arms and hugged me for just about the first time I could remember.
“Mary, I´m sorry. It had to happen sometime. How did this get started?”
“I came back from Aunt Bessie´s. She was in my room with the folder of drawings. She had to have searched the room to find it; it was zipped away in my suitcase. They´re drawings of me done by a friend at school.”
He paged quickly through the folder. “I can see why she went off her rocker. Leave her to me, and let me keep these. Where are you going?”
“I called a cab. I´ll take the Airporter. I can probably stay at Anne Stilwell´s. If not, I´ll go back to college... Here´s my cab. I´ll call and let you know where I am.”
He hugged me again hard. “Mary, I love you. You have done nothing to deserve this, it´s your mother, and it´s been coming on for years. She loves you, too, but she´s got things screwed up. I´ll be busy for a while, won´t answer the phone. Leave a message where I can reach you. Use your credit card as much as you need to and try to understand.”
I heard mom start to howl again.
“Now, go.”
I went. When I got to the airport in Denver, I checked the schedules and called Anne. She told me to come; didn´t even ask her folks. I left a message for Dad. The next plane was a red-eye, made about a dozen stops, but I got on it.
I buckled my seatbelt and cried until we landed.