The Passion Agency

by Rebecca Lee

  He went in and flipped on the TV, setting it to Fox Sports LA, and turned the sound down.

  The cat wouldn’t leave him alone as he tried to grab some quick recharging shut-eye.

  “Weird,” Chris said to himself. “Damn thing always hides out in one of the bedrooms.”

  His stoned state meant he wasn’t moving fast enough mentally to put this oddity together with the strange loud bump noise he’d heard from the direction of Brea’s room earlier. He calmly nodded off with the window’s open on a sweet, slightly breezy Southern California day in September.

  Brea came walking in about her usual time and put her books on the kitchen table loud enough to hopefully get some physical acknowledgement from Chris she was home.

  She’d spent the day fending off a couple more advances from “little boys” (as she referred to them) from her school. Her interest in boys was never lower. After all, she looked forward only to the physical pleasures and emotional high of making love with Chris everyday soon after she walked in the door.

  She finally spoke up when she noticed Chris wasn’t even acting like she was there.

  “I want that big crank of yours,” she said. “Mommy has had a long day.”

  Donna could overhear all of it and she started to seeth because it was the very phrase she would utter after a hard day’s work.

  “Little bitch is mocking me even,” she thought.

  Then she started to smile knowing what was about to come would make it all the more sweet.

  Within a few minutes she could hear Chris moan and say “Oh yeah…” over and over.

  Then after a few more minutes, footsteps coming towards Brea’s room. From her vantage point, she could see only one set of bare feet: They belonged to Chris. Then right away there was a deep and fairly loud recoil of Brea’s twin sized mattress.

  “You been eating more girl?” Chris teased her. “You seem heavier.”

  Bread giggled but said nothing.

  Chris’ voice tone became more serious.

  “You still on the pill right?” Donna saw Chris’ feet launch to his tip toes as he was clearly leaning forward onto the bed.

  Donna rolled over slightly to get a better angle and grabbed both of Chris’ feet.

  He jumped forward onto the bed and out of being inside Brea.

  “What the fuck?!” he yelled.

  Donna popped up from under the bed with a smirk on her face and came almost instantaneously to her feet.

  “I want you all to know, the gravy train of free is over,” she said in a clear unemotional tone that was all business. “I am going to need some rent or I’ll have Carl get busy with eviction papers. You better start coming up with ideas.”

  She turned and walked away feeling as empowered as she ever had in her life. She had just given her supposed boyfriend and her daughter the shock of their lives. They lay there totally naked, both physically and mentally, on her daughter’s bed.

  “By all means,” Donna said walking through threshold and turning right. “Finish what you had going. Don’t mind me.”

  Chapter 4-- The Streets of Gold

  “You did what?!” her co-worker who had given Donna the tip couldn’t believe her ears.

  There was something about what Donna did that seemed to open her world. It made her almost sociopathic in her lack of concern for social norms and what other’s thought.

  That wasn’t why she hid under her daughter’s bed and surprised her and her lover who also happened to be Donna's current boyfriend. She didn’t seek much in the way of results beyond making sure those two knew it was time to pay up or move out. She also wanted to shock them a little. Hopefully at the very least, they would remember it.

  Actually that afternoon after she walked out the door and left Brea and Chris behind, she hopped in the car and went for a drive west out towards the beach. There was this thing that went off inside her. A realization. She knew that if she could look at what she had just seen, keep her composure enough to do what she did, she might have had more courage and power than she previously knew.

  When her mom drove off, Brea laid back on her bed but didn’t put her clothes on. She didn’t pay it much mind herself either. The surprise really took her for a ride, but in an odd way it normalized the relationship with her mom.

  Brea had always been about avoiding conflict. If anything would have instigated conflict between mother and daughter, getting caught like that would have been it.

  Instead Donna sent the clear message, intended or not, that she was not going to let the relationship fall into something filled with hate, regret, and general discomfort.

  Donna served notice that even though discomfort would be part of their interactions for quite some time, the relationship would carry on and carry on under the terms of Donna’s choosing.

  To Donna’s coworker, this all seemed odd but she wasn’t going to pass judgment. She wasn’t going to do that to Donna’s face anyway. Now was time for fact-finding for some future gossip.

  “You held it together girl,” the co-worker said. “I am super impressed.”

  Donna wasn’t totally impressed after the fact. She had the big picture in mind and when she let that rule her behavior in the moment, it kept her composure for her. Automatically.

  “I don’t know,” Donna said acting like it didn’t feel like any big deal. “I was just really relaxed. I don’t hate my daughter. She’s just a kid. Besides so is Chris clearly. They deserve each other. She’ll get sick of him and dump him when she becomes a woman. He won’t dump her because he’s isn’t with her. He’s with whomever he can grab onto with minimal effort. It was me, now it’s Brea.”

  “What are you going to do with him?” she asked.

  Donna looked dead ahead over her co-workers shoulder. She had a customer and needed to go.

  “What I said,” Donna said quickly as she got up to go to the window. “I need some rent money. Come up with it. Stay. Go ahead and fuck my daughter anytime you and she are in the mood.

  ….

  “She’s gone,” Brea said laughing slightly. “Why don’t we just finish? I know one thing: it sure would add spice to the sex.”

  Brea was posing. She was actually scared to death. Not about her mother and the potential fallout from what just happened. She was scared it would end with Chris. She was growing needy and starting to actually feel like it all had a future. She was too clueless and immature to know what kind of future.

  The problem was Brea didn’t have any idea what being together meant.

  Chris sat down in a little wooden chair near the very door Donna had just exited. Although Brea and Brea’s tight little body was laying back on top of her bed, he wasn’t feeling anything but shame and fear. Shame for thinking he had betrayed the trust of someone he not only respected but loved.

  For all his ability to get what he wanted from women, Chris never felt anywhere near protected like he did with Donna. That'another thing that made her special.

  Chris sat in the chair unable to move.

  “You are sure a kinky one,” he said with less admiration and playfulness than he intended. “We’re done. For now at least. We have to get serious about making some money. I think Donna will do exactly what she just said.”

  “Awe, you are letting me and it down,” Brea said as she rubbed herself just above her clit. “I’ll maybe do it myself later. You are thinking too damn much here. Mom has her rules. Big deal. But we can still hook up.”

  Brea was desperate to hear more indication that Chris wanted to be around her. It was a tight rope. She had to be careful not to blow up her pose of the indifferent woman with a little girl’s experience. The woman said she didn’t care. The truth was the little girl was really frightened of not being able to control the situation.

  Chris got up and made his way to the front room. He was too shocked to know what to do next. His clothes were not wadded on the floor and furniture like he left them. They were neatly folded on the kitchen table. Donna.


  Same as all the many many loads of laundry Donna had done for Chris over the years.

  There was a very real sense inside of Chris right then as he put those clothes on that it was time to grow up and time to look again at who was providing real value to his life. It wasn’t the ninteen year-old pleasuring herself on her bed.

  It would take more than one incident and one fleeting moment in his mind to make the real changes that would need to be made. But there was little doubt for Chris the seed was planted. He had been a helpless shell of an adult for so long mostly because it was so easy.

  Despite it all, they were still together. Despite it all. They were still a team. A very unlikely team, but a team.

  As dysfunctional as it might have appeared to anyone who knew what happened in the home of Donnatella Passion Casteel in September 2012, their togetherness was real and it was their greatest asset.

  Chapter 5--My Baby Girl

  Diary Date October 10, 2012.

  “I haven’t written in a while, many months, because I have been working a lot. I have been

  worrying even more.

  Last month I found out my daughter and my boyfriend have been fucking in my house. No idea

  how long that’s been going on. I guess I don’t really much care. I was hurt but not in the way I thought I’d be.

  My first thought was I didn’t want to let them off the hook by doing nothing. But the something I decided I would do was pretty mild. I wanted to scare them. I wanted to let them know I could live with it. I wanted them to know there would be no more free rides in the house. If they wanted to go at it, they needed to get their own place.

  I don’t know how much longer it would have went on with Chris anyways. I haven’t been enjoying the sex because I could tell he hasn’t been enjoying the sex. I know how guys can be. They see a younger thing with a better body, less flab and wrinkles, and they want to sleep with her. Chris hasn’t been interested in me for months, I didn’t want to face it. Or maybe I didn’t have time?

  I wasn’t putting any energy into him. Same for us as a couple probably because it had run it’s course. It all was just such a habit. I remember when I was growing up and had a good time making fun of my parents and other older people. How they seemed so boring and how they did mostly the same things all the time for their work and their fun. No way was that going to be me!

  Well life can take you where you don’t want to go very easily. Like me. I got a job because I needed one to support me and Brea. I could never just quit because I needed the money from the job.

  I tried to get further ahead for us, so I got three of them. Well my whole day is planned at that point. Heck my whole week. Heck my whole life!

  Before I knew it, my life was one big boring habit just like what I used to make fun of with my parents. I found out the reality that it’s not their fault. It’s about starting out playing from behind with money and never being able to catch up.

  My life ambition goes from pursuing my dream to run my own salon for women, to just not being on the streets. Being poor is ok, but being a bum is not. I couldn’t be a bum even if that is what it might take. I’d have my day back. I could pursue my dreams from the ground up with no big responsibilities hanging over my head. Like paying for the house expenses, food for Brea and I, making sure there is gas in the car and the right papers on it to keep it on the road. All those things cost money and they take a lot of my time to make the money.

  I could never let Brea down. She is my baby girl. She is blameless for everything in my eyes. I have never been a great mother to her. It’s the truth and it hurts to admit it. It isn’t the fact that I didn’t buy into all the stuff about how you have to teach them right from wrong and morals.

  I mean come on! I don’t think morals would have made any difference in whether or not she decided to starting letting my boyfriend screw her. I think maybe feeling really wanted and important might have made a difference. She was banging for the same reason I was banging Chris all that time. We both want to feel wanted and loved.

  I failed to give that to her. We don’t communicate and never have much because when it didn’t look like normal mother daughter personality type stuff like I always imagined it, I quit. It looked like work and I totally gave up.

  I did the provider and cool friend role. I let the hole she had in her life from not having a dad around grow bigger and get worse. I abused her by neglecting her emotional needs. I let her not care because I didn’t care like a real mom should. I don’t know where we go from here, but I hope she first realizes she did wrong, but second I don’t love her any less.

  I am not judging her and that we’ll get by this discomfort. That she can do what she wants as a very young adult and I’ll still love her.

  I know this all sounds good. It feels great to write it!!! But will I actually follow through? It is going to take time. Life for me is already busy enough.

  I just don’t know but I know things have to change. I am 40 and my life is passing me by. The curse of me is I know what I can be, but I don’t know how to get there. I believe it’s possible to live my dreams. I don’t KNOW it’s possible. That’s my problem.

  I see these all these things in the world and I don’t think they are right. For example, I hate the way these models with all their fancy make up and photoshopping make women feel inferior. That stuff has probably done more to make me feel inferior. That and subsidizing a stiff like Chris more than any other factor.

  It destroys my confidence when I can’t measure up. So many of these girls are stuck chasing a phony image of what beauty actually is. The fucking men buy in even worse. I can’t compete with my daughter and I shouldn’t have to. But the young dominate the old when it comes to women getting men and all that.

  Romance ain’t dead. Just for women over 35 who don’t have the man they chose when they were 25. I hate it.

  There isn’t anything I can do about it either. So many ideas I come up with to make things better. I never get to try them out because I am beating my head against the wall collecting water bills for Inglewood or serving people eggs and bacon at a restaurant.

  I told my daughter and Chris they would need to start chipping in with the rent right after I surprised them going at it in my daughter’s room. One thing I have to say as an aside is I can’t imagine seeing anything as odd and shocking as what I saw when I looked at the two of them naked and embarrassed on Brea’s bed.

  I feel like I can take anything on and not worry if it is too much to bear after that. Maybe this is the real lesson. Who knows and who cares I guess?

  Tomorrow when I wake up I still have the same things I am trying to break out of. I don’t know how to break free. If I could live my dreams I might be way happier.

  I am not unhappy now but I might be able to do more for Brea or even Chris. I don’t like being a failure but I think life has swallowed me up. That’s why I felt way worse than like jealousy or hurt over Chris and Brea.”

  ...

  Searching around her mom’s room and uncovering her personal journal brought Brea closer to the reality of what it meant to be an adult and far closer to her mother than she had been at any point she could ever remember. She read the October 10 entry a total of three times. Each time it made her sob.

  She sobbed because she didn’t know how much her mom cared. Or maybe she sobbed because she felt truly loved when she read what her mom wrote and that was a first for her.

  She sensed most how much of her mom’s life was tied up in broken dreams and how badly she wanted to unbreak them. She could see her mom wanted those dreams for not just herself but for what the dreams could do for everyone else.