A Short Story ( What do you think?)

            She spoke slow, taking extra precaution to hide her teeth. Each one she had left, hung on by a thread the way an out of order sign would hang from a candy machine. Cracker jacks, each one had its own caramel covering. Staring in the mirror, she covered every blemish, bruise, cut, and scrape with makeup of one kind or another.

"Temptation wins."

            Everynight she worked to keep herself on the level. Each morning she covered it all up again. She was high in demand, no one else could do the things she could. After all, there aren't many lactating hookers in the word. Chicago. Philly. New York. Seattle. San Jose. Portland. Austin. Tokyo. Sydney. It was the circus that never traveled. A side show that bartered.

            Life gets complicated when to make money you have to shop for the best international phone plan. It gets complicated when you have to tell the print shop you won't need a reprint of your business cards, because in a few months, you will be out of the business. It gets complicated when you have to call yourself "An Adult Special Needs Care Giver" and the old lady at the print shop asks how much it would cost for you to provide your services to her husband that can no longer read the label on his ciggarettes. These things made her want to pull her own hair out.

            She never had to leave the house, her clients came to her. Sometimes coincidentally people getting off a plane would decide to share a cab, and they would both get off at the same house. Dying from anticipation, she would make the group flip a coin, or pick a number, she treated them like children before they even paid for it. Her living room served as a great waiting room, and at any given time, you would find up to twenty men fighting over a trading card, or who would get to be first player on the newest shoot em' up video game.

            The cops eventually decided this much foot traffic was strange and raided the house with a warrant for any drug they could find. Life is less complicated when your ex husband was a massage therapist and you have a license to practice the craft on the table he left behind. The cops became clients, first just massages, then after talking to the boys in the playroom, they began to pay for what she really advertised. They became her favorite clients. She would barter her services for what she liked to tell them was "mom borrowing from the toy box."

            Toys for Tits.

            Virtually anything she wanted was now hers. Cocaine. Marijuana. Heroine. Meth. Meth was the big one. Hillbilly Heroin she called it. The cops just laughed when she chose that over the purest cocaine they ever had seen. She could stay up for days just making money. She had a special client that paid to have her whenever she finally crashed. He would pay double, and even triple when he was too rough.She would wake up a day later, sometimes two, and look like a prune. One eye swollen shut, he would always leave one eye perfect for her. 24/7 she was making money, awake or asleep, it was better then government bonds.

            Each week, the fifteenth person to come through the door would be given a list of chores. For doing those chores he, or sometimes even a she on rare occasion, would be cared for free of charge the next three visits. She was one hell of a business woman. She had everything she wanted, and everyone she knew wrapped around her finger.

            She closed her doors for three days while she sealed all three hundred and sixty eight letters to her "children." She would only let her children come to the door, she turned them away and handed them an invitation.

December 31st

            She had the entire Descartes Hotel booked for her New Years Reunion. Each room was a presidential suite, one night would set you back over a grand. "Mom" booked the entire building for free, her first "child" was the president of the company. The kitchen was shoulder to shoulder as cooks prepared every meal she ever made for her "children." They mixed tang and shirley temple, it was her own recipe. Ceiling to floor there were three hundred and sixty eight glasses stacked with ice cubes inside frozen in the shape of hearts.

            These "children", they never knew their "mother." They never knew why she did what she did. They never knew why she had a house in suburbia. They never asked why she had an entire mens wardrobe in her closet. Thinking back, she wouldn't have been able to tell you where she got the idea, just that she was tired of being lonely. Everything dies alone, But not her, she wouldn't let it happen.

            Each guest piled into the ballroom, each guest with their coat tails, canes and top hats. The three "daughters" stood in the farthest corner of the room, outcasts, just like in grade school. Mothers tired of mothering, wanting to be nurtured. That is why they came, that is what they hoped for. The three shopped together so they would match, the wanted to look like the triplets every mom wanted to dress. They really wanted to shine. They really wanted to be noticed. They wanted more then their share of attention. To get this attention, they pushed their way to the center of the room, they would surely be seen.

            The hired help passed each cup out, each one filled with their favorite drink and heart shaped ice cubes. Then the hired help left, they were being payed for the rest of the night, but they were excused, no longer needed. The hotel was nothing more than a mother and her children. All the bell boys, all the managers and maids, paid to stay home. It was when the last waiter had shut the door, the lights turned off and a single spotlight shining on the balcony turned on. Silence in a single instant, every single eye was on that balcony. The ice cubes in each glass slowly melting.

11:54 P.M.

            All of them with their glasses filled to the rim, standing there, taking extra caution not to spill it on their dress clothes. On the balcony, the dark red curtain shakes a little. Mom pushes her way through the hanging fabric. She looked the way all her magazines told her she should look. Dark red dress gown, her lips an even darker shade of red. Like a statue her hair never even bounced as she walked, it stuck in its perfect form. The room erupted with her children whistling, screaming, yelling, all cheering their own way. All at once like they had planned earlier, they all said in unison: " We love you Mom." She calmed them all down as she brought a microphone to her face, "Shh..." The same thing she would do in the waiting from at her house.

            It was then that she began her speech.

            " My children, Do you love me?"

            " How far would go to be with your mother forever?"

            " I have brought you all together on this night to make you an offer."

            "Children, why have you not touched your glasses?"

            " Drink up little ones, your Mother loves you."

            "Children, I make you a promise tonight, You will die knowing your mother loves you, You will spend the rest of your lives being cared for and nutured by me. My children, we will be together forever, our forevers they start now. My children join me, let us count backwards from ten, let us go to sleep."

            The entire room joined in, the entire room slowly speaking slower and slower.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Sev-en..

Sickksss...

Fuhh-hive...

Forrrrre....

Threeee...

Tuh- whooo

Wuh-

            A true fairy tale if there ever was one. A Cinderella story with no prince, no slipper, nothing to try on, no mystery.

            The triplets, they were noticed, they got the extra attention. Detective Ross walked out on the balcony and saw a flower of bodies. He would later call it a Daisy of Death. The White Dresses and the Black Suits in a circle around them, a Flower.

            It didn't take the police long to figure out what had happened. A letter had been delivered a week in advance to the precinct down the street, a letter that had just been ignored.

            Her name was Margeret. She had once been married. She had once been the mother of three children, and almost a fourth....

What makes someone a god? Someone who can choose or change destiny or fate? If that is the case, I soon will be a god. I am a sort of a god already. I control the worlds leaders, I tuck them in night after night, and pack them their lunches as they go back to their respective countries to lead. Some not as far as the rest. Some don't even have to leave the country. So I ask you, What will you do when the world is in Anarchy? When mom is gone.

            I woke up a year ago, and realized something needed to change. My life needed a jump start. Thats when chose to mix things up a bit. After work I stood on the corner and waited for someone to ask for my services. I had only slept with one man in my life until this point. After our third child he had a vasectomy.

            This man did not.

            Life soon got complicated. I hid my dirty little secret as long as I could. It was at a normal family dinner when my husband noticed the spots on my blouse. Thats when my life changed. My husband never had an anger problem, not untill that night. The milk that would make me so much money later, it was my family's undoing. He struck me, my head bounced off the wall at the top of the staircase and I fell. I awoke in a empty house, in a puddle of my own blood. My children gone. My husband gone. My bastard child gone before he could arrive. I wanted so desperately to wake up, I pinched my arms till they bled. It was that night I made my career change.

            I went to the Atm to withdraw money to buy a gun. A gun and a bullet. I soon found that my accounts were empty, the bastard took everything I loved. I walked to the corner where it all started. It wasn't long before we were back at my house, and I had leaked all over the man. The man, he paid extra for that, and he took a bottle home. That was how it all started.

            When this is all over, I hope you will call your mom and apologize for everything you ever did wrong. When this is over, the world will be without any leaders, and without this direction, the children will make a mess. Who will clean it up?

            On December thirty first, New Years Eve, I will gather all of the men and women who control the world. All of which I have wrapped around my finger. It is on that night that we will all bow out.  We will let you take care of the world.

            Perhaps you will read this before my heart melts. I doubt that this will happen.

                                                                        - Margeret O. Mills

                                                                                    M.O.M.