She’s showering with the curtain open and then steps out and towels her hair her large breasts swaying as she puts one leg then the other on the tub to be dried off and she chooses her thong makes up her face with her painting kit and slips on her dress without a bra and takes a pair of tall heels from her closet but before she puts them on she takes off her thong and tosses it in her dresser drawer and she starts out of her room and we jump down and are sitting in our beds talking when mom comes in to tell us boys to be good while she’s gone and then when she comes home we wake from pretend sleep and watch her undress and shimmy in front of a man with a big belly and a cigar coming out the corner of his mouth and then she unbuckles his pants and drops them along with his underwear to the floor and bends over her bed as he shuffles two steps behind her and Momma yells out Daddy Daddy and we watch until he’s finished and she washes him off and he gives her money from a fat roll of bills, and he still has the cigar in the corner of his mouth as they walk down the stairs not bothering to open our door or check up on us.
***
“Momma Knows We Watch” was a Finalist and ‘Highly Recommended’ in The London Independent Story Prize, 2018; England
Image: Egon Schiele “Kneeling Female Nude Back View” 1915. 72×109; Private Collection. Vienna, Austria
Paul Beckman
Paul Beckman’s latest flash collection, Kiss Kiss (Truth Serum Press) was a finalist for the 2019 Indie Book Awards. Some of his stories have appeared in Spelk, Anti-Heroin Chic, Connotation Press, Bending Genres, Litro, Pank, Playboy, WINK, Jellyfish Review, The Wax Paper, Monkey, and The Lost Balloon. He had a story selected for the 2020 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology Lineup and was shortlisted in the Strands International Flash Fiction Competition. He was nominated for 2021 Best of the Web. Cervana Barva will be publishing Paul's new collection of connected flash called, Becoming Mirsky. Paul earned his MFA from Bennington College and curates the FBomb NY flash fiction reading series monthly in KGB’s Red Room (Currently Virtual).
Great story that is one sentence with a perfect, sad ending of “not bothering to open our door or check up on us.” Like the boys have been doing on their mom. And the artwork by Egon Schiele is perfect. Raw. The shoes still on.
Thanks so much, Pamela.