Who Seduced Whom?

In the game of seduction when it’s a son and his mother, who is the hunter and the hunted? After his parents separated, Valentino’s mom moved to Spring Hill, Florida while he stayed in New York to finish high school. A year passes and Val finds a change of scenery has done wonders for Mom. Within family, the lines become blurred, boundaries are pushed asides and rules broken—but Who Seduced Whom?

~~~~~ PG Excerpt ~~~~~

Is this reunion or what? I wondered. It was weird to realize it felt as if my mother was a stranger to me.

After fighting with the traffic on Grand Central Parkway, I arrived at LaGuardia. Another half hour was spent trying to find a parking space. Then, finally finding the terminal where her flight was scheduled to arrive. The entire time, I couldn't shake a feeling of bizarre strangeness. While I watched her plane land and taxi to the terminal, I was startled to realize how much anxiety I felt at seeing her again. Waiting for her, the feeling grew with each passing minute as I watched the passengers disembark. I wondered, Where the hell is she? while noticing a very attractive woman who seemed to be looking directly at me and walking my way. Looking over and around her, I wondered where my mother was.

“Val,” the alluring older woman called out. I guestimated she was about 32 and assumed she must be calling to her daughter or someone who stood behind me.

“Val,” she repeated. Now only 10 feet away from me I knew she addressed me.

“Mom?” I wondered. The lady who stood before me wasn't anyone I ever met before. She looked to be in her early thirties, not 40 going on ancient. She seemed to be taller than my mother should be and drastically built differently. I remembered my mother being somewhat short, roundish, dumpy and drab. The woman before me wasn't any of these things.

I took in that this lady was about five-six. She had short, very dark auburn hair, which was well coiffed; whereas my mother had washed out, dull, light chestnut hair, which she wore long and lifeless. Instead of my mother's flushed, fleshy face, this lady's hair now framed a face that was lively, alert and defined. Her facial features, while very attractive, seemed as if chiseled from stone instead of molded from Play-Doh. Her cheeks were the feature you noticed first. Her cheekbones were strong and very prominent; they seemed to hide her deep set, smoldering dark brown eyes. When she smiled at me the lines, angles and edges of her face become more pronounced. Yet I saw my mom's dimples and recognized her smile even if I didn't recognize the strong square chin attached to her smooth, shapely jaw that was firmly separated from her neck.

Even as I grasped the fact this was in fact my mom, I also noted her body had also morphed. Formerly my mother seemed like the typical Queens mom, maybe hot back in her day but life hadn't been kind and they had given up the fight against age, gravity and expansion. Yet now she seemed reenergized. I guestimated she shed at least twenty-five pounds and had redistributed the remaining. No longer too wide in the middle and a bit frumpy, she was now shapely: thick in her legs and lean up top.

Her clothing reflected this change.

She wore a pair of sporty white Reebok sneakers with anklet socks. From there, she displayed her bared ankles and toned shapely calves. She wore a pair of dark cranberry yoga pants that fit her legs amazingly snug. Her leggings ended mid-calf. In fact, I was stunned at how powerful, full, and muscular her legs were. Unlike some women who seem to wear stretch leggings to contain their flesh, holding everything tight like sausage wrapping; with my mom, you could tell the Lycra was stretching to mold and form around her thick legs, imagine Saran Wrap conforming to a bowl. I had trouble believing the fact I was appreciating how curvaceous her thighs were, along with the amazing sweep they created as they flowed into her well-defined hips. I wondered to myself, Dude, What the…?