Capítulo 14: Chapter 14: Unfortunate Masturbation, Part 1

I opened the front door to my parents' house without using my key. My family never locked their front door, or the back for that matter. The back yard didn't even have a fence. The reasoning was, nothing ever happened in Azle, Texas. The neighborhood was safewhite, middle-class, and filled with Evangelical Christians. My own bedroom had been built without a lock.

"I'm here," I called out.

"Sister!" my little sister, Mariah answered from her usual spota brown faux leather recliner chair. She had our mini-dachshund, Penny, clutched tightly in her arms, and a pair of headphones around her neck.

I took a deep breath and maneuvered around the piles of junk everywhere: a discarded stationary bike that had never been used, shoeboxes filled with trinkets to send to the starving, heathen children in Africa, plastic garbage bags of old childhood clothes still needing to be taken to Goodwill (and probably never would), mounds of toys for "holiday gifts." My mother was the kind of person to give a person a giftbag for St. Patrick's Day.

The sight of my mother's hoarding filled me with a subtle feeling of suffocation. It seemed as though each time I came back to my parents' house, the piles grew a bit larger, like mold on cheese. I just needed to pick up my mail, chat, and get back to Dallas.

"Come on in!" I heard my mother's voice somewhere deep in the bowels of the house. She came out of her bedroom, which contained piles of clothes three feet high and twelve feet long, carrying boxes of crayons and other school supplies.

"I've just got to get this finished for Operation: Christmas Child," she said, going straight to the couch. She picked up the remote control and turned up the volume on the Hallmark Channel. Some Christmas movie was playing; it was August. "We packed over eight hundred boxes last year, but I swear this will be the last time I do this. It's just too much stress."

"Isn't that what you said the last five years?" I said, trying to keep the deep sarcasm and cynicism from my voice.

"Yes, but this time I really mean it," she replied. "It's good to see you, sweetie."

I walked over and gave her a quick hug. I sat down on the loveseat adjacent to the couch.

"You too. Is my mail here?"

"Yep, got a whole pile for you. Here it is."

I took the small stack of envelopes and felt my anger start to rise.

"Mom, I've told you over and over, please don't open my mail."

Every single piece had a small, neat opening in the top. Even the applications for credit cards.

She laughed, as if my privacy were a joke. "Oh, it's not that big of a deal. Besides, what if it's something important?"

"Then I will deal with it. Me. On my own."

"Oh, you're always so 'independent,'" my mother replied, her eyes glued to the tv screen. She made it sound like a bad thing.

Do not take the bait, do not take the bait.

"You realize that opening someone else's mail is a federal crime, right?" I tried to sound light-hearted and failed wretchedly.

"Oh, Ariel, why do you always have to be so negative?"

"When's dad getting home?" I tried to switch topics and just let it drop, like I always did. I would never win the mail debate. There was no winning against Susan Slick.

"In a little bit. Want to sit down and talk?" The cheery Christmas music and sub-par acting was blaring in the background.

"No. I'm just going to go upstairs."

I hated when she opened my mail. She had discovered more than once something I would have preferred to keep to myself. Student loan payments. Hospital bills. My prescription for my birth control pills. ("Why did you need to get birth control?" "'Cause I have really bad periods, Mom." And I'm having sex.)

"Are you going to church in the morning?" she yelled.

No.

"I'll think about it," I yelled back, from the stairs.

Walking to my room, I tried to put mental blinders on. Piles and piles of junk filled the hallways and game room. My older sister's room had so much stuff in it that you couldn't even see the bed anymore. Once safely ensconced in my bed, under the covers, I turned on an episode of TrueBlood.

At a particularly salacious scene, I started touching myself. I was mostly covered by blankets when my dad opened my door without knocking. I punched the spacebar of my laptop.

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod

"Hey dad, what's up? Didn't know you were home."

We're all just going to pretend like my father did not just catch me masturbating.

"Dinner's almost ready. Are you going to go down?"

Not daring to look at my dad directly, I rubbed my eyes, and said, "Yeah, just give me a minute." Or one million years to revive from this acute embarrassment from which I will surely never fully recuperate.

"Oh ok," he said, closing the door.

Not for the first time, I wished my family knew the meaning of shut doors, locks, and fences.

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