My Horizontal Life

Grand Central Publishing

Look Who's Having Sex with Mommy

I was seven years old when my sister told me she'd give me five dollars to runupstairs into my parents' room while they were having sex and take a picture. Atthat age I had heard of sex but had no idea what it looked like. I knew for surethat my parents were sexually active. My father had impregnated my mother on sixdifferent occasions, all of which she decided to keep, so it was clear to mysiblings and me that there was a definite attraction. There were many times whenwe would hear loud bumping and raucous laughter coming from their bedroom. Mybrothers and sisters always reacted with disgust and, being the youngest, Iwould follow suit, but was never sure why. Without knowing exactly what the actof sex entailed, there wasn't any real reason to be revolted, but it had becomesecond nature to pretend I knew something I didn't.

I was always up for a chance to make easy money. I had been wearing hand-me-downs since I was born, and by the age of seven was already sick and tired of mysecond-string wardrobe. I may not have known what sex was, but I did know that Ineeded to step up my wardrobe in order to be taken seriously in the first grade."No problem," I said. "Where's the camera and how do I use it?"

I tiptoed up the stairs leading to my parents' bedroom with my sister Sloanefollowing close behind. Their door had a lock on it, but it was old and didn'tsecure inside the doorjamb anymore. If it was locked you weren't able to turnthe handle, but if you smashed your body into it, it would open.

I checked and saw it was locked. I would have to use physical force. Sloanecrept back toward the top of the staircase. I set up for a running start.

"Ready?" I asked her.

"Go!" she whispered.

Seeing your mother naked is not something you easily recover from. Seeing yourmother naked and jumping from one side of a king-size bed to the other with anurse's hat on while your father, who is also naked, is chasing her with abandanna around his neck is reason to put yourself up for adoption. Fortunately,I took the first picture before anything had a chance to register. The secondpicture was of my father heading toward me with a belt.

My sister was already down the stairs when I came running out of my parents'room. I jumped all the way from the top of the stairs to the bottom. Luckily, Ihad perfected this jump months earlier during three consecutive snow days. I didnot dare look behind me to see if my father and his penis were chasing me; Ijust kept running. We lived in a split-level house, so at the bottom of the bigstairs, there was a shorter set of stairs to the right and to the left. I wentleft and my sister went right. I saw her head for the basement and followed herin. Our basement doubled as the laundry room; the one room in our house myfather had never been in.

"Lock the door!" she barked, as she scrambled to hide under a pile of dirtyclothes.

"Oh, my God, Dad has a belt," I told her.

"What?"

"A belt! He has a belt! I think he wants to hit us with it!"

"The one he wears with his pants?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "I think he wants to belt us!"

We were too scared to cry. This was it for me, I was sure of it. I was going tobe murdered in my basement by my naked father, with a belt. I had never been hitby a belt before but had heard stories about it happening in poorerneighborhoods. Suddenly, there was the sound of footsteps coming down the stairsand then banging on the door.

"Open the goddamn door! Now! You two are gonna get a smack and you're gonna getit now!"

I stared at Sloane with big eyes. I wanted her to think of a way out of thismess. She was twelve and she needed to take charge.

"Ask him if it's with the belt or his hand," Sloane said.

I looked at her to make sure she was serious, then yelled back, "With your handor a belt?"

"What?!"

I went closer to the stairs that led to the door. "Are you going to hit us withthe belt or your hand?"

He was shaking the handle now. "No one's getting hit with a belt!" he shouted."One ... two ..."

This was before there were time-outs, so my sister and I didn't know what tomake of his counting. I wondered if his ABCs were next. He stopped at "three,"and we braced ourselves when "four" didn't come.

Sloane was holding on to me for dear life. Her crying had turned into heaving,and now she started to shake uncontrollably. I tried to comfort her by rubbingher back like my mother did but was too preoccupied with my imminent beating tobe very reassuring.

Since my sister had turned into a real mess, it was up to me to devise a plan ofescape. At that moment, Sloane wouldn't have been able to lead a horse to ourswimming pool, never mind leading me to my bedroom without getting my asskicked.

"We have to go up and just let him hit us," my sister whispered.

"Ah, I don't think so. I don't make appointments to get hit. Plus, this was youridea and Dad should hit you both times."

"I want to get it over with!"

"No fucking way. I am not going upstairs to get hit."

This was the very first time I said "fucking" in front of anyone and I liked theway it sounded. I had heard my brothers and sisters use curse words but hadnever dared use one myself in front of anyone. But I had practiced alone in myroom lots of times, trying out different cadences and intonations: "Fuck, fuck,fuck you, fucknut. Shit, shitstain, fucker! Go fuck a duck, you asswipe!" Myfavorite was, "What a fucking cocksucker." The plan was to say this casually toone of my new friends while one of our teachers walked by. No one inkindergarten ever really got my sense of humor, so I was hell-bent on making mymark in the first grade.

Saying the word "fucking" in front of my sister catapulted me to an instantstate of authority. Sloane stared expectantly at me. I strained to hear what wasgoing on upstairs. Suddenly, everything was very quiet. I fantasized that myfather had forgotten why he had wanted to hit us in the first place. Maybe hewas watching the stock market and found out that his eight shares of Noah'sBagels had quadrupled. Maybe if we stayed down there long enough he would forgetall about what we did and actually be excited to see us when we came out. Icould lie and say I was just looking for Q-tips and used the camera to blockwhat I hadn't expected to see. Or I could say I just wanted help with myhomework. My father loved when I did my homework.

We hadn't even been in the basement for a whole half hour when my sister startedto complain that she was hungry.

"Where do you think Mom is?" she asked. My mother was the nice one, and shealways protected us when my father was in one of his moods. I knew my motherwouldn't be mad at us because she was always defending us to our father nomatter what we did. Especially since we had a lot to hold over her head.

All I would have to do is remind her of a week earlier when she forgot to pickme up from school and I had been accosted by a male predator on my way home. Ourhouse wasn't even a mile from school, but some man slowed his car along thesidewalk I was walking on and asked if I knew any tricks. Upon taking a goodlook at an overweight older man with gray stubble, wearing a pair of coveralls,I bolted home faster than I'd finished the fifty-yard dash earlier that day.After a good twenty minutes of me berating my mother for not picking me up andallowing me to possibly be abducted, she hit the roof.

"But you weren't, were you?" she said. "Luckily you were able to outrun him!"

My mother is European and expresses her love through food and cuddling. Shewasn't the type of mother who would make it to school plays or soccer games, butif you wanted to stay home sick, she was your girl. Whenever you'd go up to herroom to cuddle with her, she'd pull out a KitKat or Snickers bar from her nighttable and look at you with dancing eyes. She is a very sweet woman but had zerotolerance for all the Jewish mothers in our town and wanted to avoid them at allcosts. If there was a parents' night or a teacher conference, it was understoodearly on that our mother would rather set herself on fire; we were lucky if sheshowed up at our bat mitzvah. Unfortunately, my father loved any sort of schoolevent and would usually show up hooting and hollering in the front row, wearingsnow boots and a sweater covered in dog hair.

Normally, I would have expected my mother to knock on the basement door andexplain to us how to avoid getting smacked, but who knew what kind of high shewas on after her nude pep rally upstairs.

"I heard that men fall asleep after they have sex," Sloane offered.

"Dad didn't look tired when he was chasing me with his belt," I told her.

"I don't know if I can wait for Mom to come for us. I'm really hungry."

I climbed up on the dryer and took a seat. "Mom was wearing a nurse's hat."

"What?" She seemed concerned.

"When I walked in on them, she was naked and Dad was chasing her on the bed. Isaw his penis."

"Ew ..."

"Ew? Ew? You're the pervert who made me do it!"

"I didn't think you'd really do it," she said.

"You knew I would!"

This was so typical of Sloane. She always backed out of a situation oncecontroversy found its way into it. My brothers and sisters knew they could getme to do anything, mostly because I wanted them to like me, but Sloane was adifferent story. I wasn't sure I liked her.

"You are so double-faced," I told her. "I hate you."

"It's 'two-faced,' dummy, and I am not!" she said.

"Oh, really, what about the time with the Feinstein sisters," I reminded her.

A year earlier when I was in kindergarten and she was in the fifth grade, wewould walk to school together in the morning. One day, two other sisters were ontheir way to school with their five-foot-tall Irish wolfhound following closelybehind. They were telling their dog to go back home but the dog wouldn't listen.Sloane was scared because the dog was so big and kept growling at us. The girlswere laughing at my sister for being scared of their dog, but in reality, thisdog was scary. He was huge and mean and looked like he belonged in a wild animalpark. He had a large open wound on his hind leg and looked as if he were slowlydecomposing.

"Stop laughing at my sister, you dumb girls," I yelled. "Your dog is ugly andbelongs in a shelter."

"Shut up," Sloane said through her teeth. "Shut up."

"Oh, look, Sloane needs her six-year-old sister to defend her," one of the girlssneered.

"No, she doesn't," I yelled, then turned to Sloane for some backup—only tosee her running furiously in the direction of the school.

Years later I learned the word "turncoat" in history class. Had I had this kindof ammunition against her earlier, things might have ended up differently.

"I dropped the camera in Mom's room," I told her.

"Oh, that's just great." She stood up with her hands on her hips. "I havepictures on there of Marsha's sleepover party. We all took our pajamas off andtook pictures while playing Truth or Dare."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because. We felt like it."

"I'm telling," I told her.

"Who cares?" she said. "It was only girls."

"Lesbian!" I yelled.

I knew what a lesbian was because my father's best friend from high school'swife left him for another woman and my father referred to her only as "thelesbian."

"I am not a lesbian. Shut up!"

"Yes, you are. I knew it."

"If anyone's a lesbian, it's you," she said. That shut me up.

"It's better for us just to go upstairs and get it over with," she said. "Atleast then we can eat something. I want a sandwich."

"How can you think about food at a time like this?" I asked her. "Do you thinkpeople at the Battle of Gettysburg had time for peanut butter and jelly?"

Switching tactics, she reminded me that it was a Thursday night and we would bemissing The Cosby Show if we stayed in the basement. That would havebeen enough to drive any level-headed seven-year-old insane.

Even so, I was ready to stay in the basement as long as it took for my dad toforget about what had happened. I had seen his penis and did not think I wouldbe able to look him in the eye any time soon.

I thought about escaping through our one basement window, but then I would onlybe outside and it was cold. Winter was not a good time to run away from home,especially without an overnight bag.

I wondered if my mother was actually mad at me too. I told my sister I wouldneed more than the five dollars we had originally agreed on.

"No way! You got caught. That was not part of the deal! I'm not even sure I'mgoing to give you the five dollars!"

I smacked her on the back of the head. She tried to hit me, but I ducked. Thenshe ran toward the stairs.

"No! Don't go!!!" I yelled, but she was already up the stairs and out the doorwhen I ran up after her to try and pull her back down.

I locked the door just as I heard her get another smack, but this one soundedlike it was on her face. I listened as she started wailing. This upset medeeply. I wanted her to be a strong gladiator type, the kind of girl Ienvisioned myself at thirteen. A weight lifter with a steadfast disposition anda designer wardrobe. But she was a sissy, and I could not follow suit.

It was becoming clear to me that the only way out of this was to turn the tableson my father. Instead of running, I would never leave the basement. Not even ifhe begged me. I would tell him how sickened I was by what I saw and that I nowhad reservations about going out into the real world without a psychiatrist bymy side. I would insist on therapy two to three times a week and also insistthat it take place during school hours. I would demand an entirely new wardrobeand that they allow me to move into the master bedroom, while my parents took myroom. I would make them beg for my forgiveness while threatening them withlawsuits: unfit parenting, involving a minor in sexual activities, pornographicexposure to a minor, the list would go on and on. I saw IrreconcilableDifferences. I was no dummy.

My father knocked on the door for the last time that night. "Are you ready tocome out and get your smack?"

"I want Mom," I said. There was no response from the other side of the door. Iwondered how Sloane's sandwich tasted with her bloody lip. I wondered if theHuxtable children had ever walked in on their parents having sex. It wasimportant to occupy my mind with other thoughts, so I decided to do somelaundry. Maybe when my mother came and saw that all the laundry had been doneshe would tell my father, who would come to the conclusion that I wasn't such abad kid after all. I took one look at the laundry machine with all its buttonsand dials and decided sleep was more appealing.

I woke up sometime in the middle of the night after feeling something crawl overmy foot. I jumped up and ran to the top of the stairs. Slowly, I opened thedoor. All the lights were out. No one was in sight. I went straight to bed andfell asleep.

My father came in my room at seven a.m. to wake me up. "It's time to get up,love." Then he walked downstairs.

I was ecstatic. Sloane should have listened to me the whole time! I got dressedfor school, had a bowl of Lucky Charms in celebration of my personal victory,and brushed my teeth.

My father said he'd be outside warming up the car. You never knew which car thiswas because we had about ten in our driveway. My father fancied himself a usedcar dealer, but as I understood it, "dealing" meant buying and then selling.Cars would pile up in our driveway for years at a time, and on most mornings myfather would have to jump-start one or more to get us to school. Each car wasmore embarrassing than the next and none were made in the decade in which welived.

I went outside and jumped into the car that was smoking, which was a fluorescentturquoise Plymouth something or other with vinyl interior. I was flying so highfrom my victory, I decided to compliment him on the car.

"I love this color, Dad."

My firm yet supple seven-year-old ass had hardly touched the vinyl when my ownfather sucker-slapped me. Right on my nose. I was in pure, titillated horror. Icouldn't even respond with words. I thought for sure my nose was broken, butthen the tingling sensation died—just when I was starting to enjoy it.