Humiliated (PG)

Wrestling Mom

It started out as a pleasant summer evening at my mom’s house.  I was home from college, and my girlfriend Jill and I were hanging out in the den while Mom and several of her female friends (including Jill’s mom) were laughing and drinking wine upstairs in the living room.  Rolling around on the floor and tickling Jill, I never dreamed this was about to become the most embarrassing night of my life. 

My mother looks a lot like Annette Bening in the movie “American Beauty,” and she even sells real estate just like that character did.  Fortunately, my mom is a little less high-strung than that.  She and I have always been on good terms, and we joke around a lot with each other.  I must say, though, that recently we’d been getting on each other’s nerves just a bit.  I guess you could say we had been having a little power struggle since I’d been home.

Mom’s best friend happens to be Jill’s mother, Marilyn.  That’s a little awkward, but both women are pretty laid back so it hasn’t been a problem.  Jill and I have known each other since the third grade but only began dating when we were seniors in high school.  We go to different colleges, so during the summers back home we’re inseparable. 

That night, as I said, Jill and I were just messing around.  Actually, we were having a tickle fight, which was a common activity for us.  Both of us were laughing hysterically, me because I had pinned her down and Jill because I was tickling her unmercifully.  “Let me go!” she pleaded between airless bursts of laughter.  I refused and tickled her even more gleefully.

“You ought to know better than to get into a wrestling match, Jillie,” a voice said behind me.  Surprised, I turned quickly and saw Jill’s mother standing in the doorway, laughing at her daughter’s predicament.  At her shoulder were my mother and two other female friends.  All the women were holding their glasses of wine and were grinning knowingly at us.

I hastily got off my girlfriend as the middle aged women sauntered into the room and seated themselves on the sofa and the recliner.  Jill and I sat on the floor, and Jill tried to straighten out her clothes.  Her mother continued her earlier statement: “I mean, Jill, if you can’t outwrestle your own mother, how do you expect to outwrestle Mark, here?” 

“Mom!” Jill shrieked, embarrassment and anger in her voice. 

“What?” asked Marilyn, feigning innocence. “You haven’t told Mark that your mom is the wrestling champion at our house?”

“No,” said Jill, “It hasn’t come up.”

“I’ve got to hear about this!” I said.

“Me, too!” said my mother, and the other women assented. 

Marilyn laughed.  “Oh, it’s nothing, really.  I’m just teasing her.  The other night we were playing around and she was so mad when I actually pinned her.” 

“You got lucky,” muttered Jill. 

“I can’t believe you let your mother beat you!” I blurted.  Perhaps it was the loudness with which I made that statement.  Maybe it was the contempt in my voice when I said the word “mother.”  Maybe it was simply the wine my mom had been drinking.  Whatever the cause, Mom appeared to take offense at my comment.

“You better watch yourself, little boy,” she said, poking me in the chest with the toes of her bare foot.  “Don’t put us mothers down.  We’re not helpless yet.”

“Yeah, right,” I said, pushing her foot away.  “Like you could ever wrestle.”

The room got quiet.  One of the other women snickered, “That sounded like a challenge to me!” 

Mom pursed her lips and set her wine glass down on the coffee table.  We locked eyes for a moment, and then she slid off the recliner and onto her knees on the carpet in front of me.  “You’re on, little boy,” she taunted.

I was confused.  My mother was actually going to wrestle me?  She edged forward, her arms out.  I scooted away, unsure, and in that instant Mom suddenly pounced.  The ladies all whooped and hollered as Mom immediately dug her long, pink fingernails into my ribs and began tickling me, the way she had done when I was a just a kid.  The truth be told, I was always very ticklish. Instinctively I curled up into a fetal position and tried to cover my torso with my arms.  “Stop,” I giggled.  Mom straddled my stomach and continued the onslaught.

Soon I recovered my wits and forced myself to withstand the tickling and actually fight back.  I managed to grab both of Mom’s wrists and hold them at bay.  We struggled for a moment or two until I managed to roll her off my stomach.  Then I was able to pin her arms to the carpet by her head. 

“See, Mom,” I said, still panting for breath after her tickling.  “I’m just way stronger than you are.” 

The other women were offering Mom encouragement.  Even Jill was yelling for my mother.  And Mom was struggling in my grip like a wildcat.  She was wearing a pink tanktop, and I could see the slim muscles in her arms flexing and straining as she tried to break free.  She squirmed and kicked her legs.  I was surprised by her resistance.  Was it the wine?  “Come on, Mom, give up,” I pleaded.  “You’re beat.”

Mom finally lay still for a moment.  “Do you give?” I asked.  She licked her lips, as if thinking about it.  I noticed that her lipstick matched the dark pink polish on her fingernails and toenails.  Suddenly she squirmed again and somehow managed to wrench her right hand from my grip.  Before I could seize it again she had reached up and snatched the hair on the side of my head. 

“Yow!” I screeched as she jerking my head down by the hair, forcing me to twist my neck.  Apparently I lost my grip on her other hand, too, because her left hand suddenly gripped my chin and continued forcing my head to the side.  By driving her sharp fingernails into the skin on my cheeks with one hand and nearly yanking my hair out by the roots with the other, she not only twisted my neck painfully to the side, she managed to throw me off her completely.

Now I was back on the carpet.  Mom maintained her grip on my hair as we struggled.  She straddled me again, but I was fighting back this time.  I tried to roll to my stomach.  On my back, Mom was able to use all her weight to push my head face-first into the carpet, using my hair as a convenient handle.  I reached back to grab her wrist, but she only gripped my hair more tightly.  I couldn’t believe how intense the pain was in my scalp as she jerked my head around by my hair!  I rose to all fours, pushing my chest off the ground, but with a great surge Mom shoved me back to the carpet.  Before I could rise again, she planted one of her knees on the side of my face and the other on the middle of my back.  Still, she kept my hair twisted in her long fingers.

I couldn’t believe it!  Mom had all her weight resting on my head and back, driving her knees into me, while controlling my head by her hair!  The other ladies, and Jill, all cackled with excitement, cheering on Mom and taunting me.

Adjusting to the pain and catching my breath, I once again forced myself to my hands and knees.  After all, I’m considerably bigger than my mother.  Just as I was trying to rise to my feet, though, she managed to grab my left wrist and, before I knew it, she had twisted my arm into a hammerlock.  I didn’t even know she knew what a hammerlock was!  She must have seen it on a TV show.  I gasped in pain, and maybe even whimpered, as she forced my wrist high in between my shoulder blades.  Then she shoved me forward again.

I landed with a thud on the floor in front of the sofa, right at Jill’s mom’s feet.  She lifted them up quickly, out of my way, but Mom said, “No, Marilyn, leave them there.”  Forcing my face right at Marilyn’s red-polished toenails, Mom said, “OK, honey.  Kiss her feet.”

“What?” I cried.  The women all laughed hysterically.

“You heard me, Mark.  Kiss her feet.  If you want me to let you go, you are going to kiss everyone’s feet.”

“You bitch,” I snapped.

There was a pause, as the disrespectful word sank it.  Suddenly Mom smashed my face into the carpet, blinding me with pain.  My nose felt like it had exploded.  She jerked me back painfully, hurting my neck.  At the same time, she was twisting my arm so violently that I thought she would break it. 

Leaning forward, she whispered into my ear, “What did you say, honey?”

“Uuuuhhhhh,” I gasped.  “I’m sorry…I’m sorry.”

“I know you are, honey.  Now kiss Marilyn’s feet.”

And so I did.  One by one, toe by toe, I kissed all the women’s feet.  Mom guided me down the sofa and forced my mouth onto each waiting foot.  She even steered me over to Jill, who was beside herself with delight at the sight of me being controlled by my mother.  “Lick in between my toes,” ordered Jill, loving the situation. 

Finally Mom released my arm and let go of my hair.  I  curled into a ball and took turned massaging my elbow and rubbing my hand on the back of my head, wondering if I was bleeding from the scalp.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Mom asked.  I looked up and saw her standing over me, gloating.  There she was, an attractive, slim, forty-eight year-old woman, standing there in pink shorts and a halter top, and she had just kicked my ass.  She pointed a long, polished fingernail to her feet.  “Kiss them,” she commanded.

With tears on my cheeks, I leaned forward and kissed my mother’s feet.  “We’ve got to get a picture of this,” I heard one of the women say.  “Freshen up your lipstick,” another said.  And so now, as a condition of my living at home this summer, my mother has forced me to keep a photograph of me kissing her feet while she applies new lipstick on the door to my room.  Jill, for one, loves it.