I gave him a grinning dirty look, “You’re such an ass hamster.”

He chuckled. “A hamster? I like to think of myself as more of an ass weasel, or maybe an ass ferret. Something with fangs.”

“Take your pick,” I said sarcastically. “Either way, you’re a small, sniveling, furry animal used to wipe people’s butts.”

He snickered. “Who in their right mind would wipe their butt with a rodent?”

“Primitive people who were tired of using leaves?”

“But hamsters?”

“Did you say butt hamsters?” I snickered.

He rolled his eyes, “You know what I mean.”

“Hey, I’m sure thousands of years before the invention of quilted toilet paper, people looked around for softer alternatives than birch bark.”

He grimaced, “Birch bark?”

“Scratchy as hell, I know,” I smiled. “A wiggling hamster is way better. Plus the wiggling action does half the work for you.”

He scoffed while smiling, “Maybe you need to go into advertising, because I’m willing to buy your line of bullshit.” He chuckled, “Don’t tell anyone, but your insanity is your most attractive feature.”

“Are you saying I’m not attractive?” I demanded from where I stood on the chair. “Because I’ll smite you if you say I’m not.”

He grinned up at me. “I merely referenced your intense beauty to give your incredible insanity some context. They could fill an entire asylum with your craziness.”

“Hand me a sword, because I’m about to go on a smiting spree,” I giggled.

My phone suddenly rang. It sat on a work table nearby. The ringtone was for an unknown caller.

“Do you want me to answer that for you?” Christos asked.

“Nah, I don’t know who it is. Let it go to voicemail.”

A minute later, the phone rang again.

Christos glanced at me, “Want me to get it?”

“I’m sure it’s a telemarketer,” I dismissed.

Christos went back to mixing some paint. “Can you take the pose again?”

“Sure.” I stood on my tiptoes and lifted my arms.

My phone rang a third time.

Christos sighed, “You sure you don’t want me to get it? Or I can turn the ringer off.”

“Why don’t you answer it and say something menacing,” I grinned.

He arched an eyebrow, “Menacing?”

“I don’t know, you’re the tough guy. Be tough. You’re totally sexy when you’re tough.”

He set his brush down, walked over to the table, and answered the phone. “Hello?”

“That’s tough?” I scoffed.

He nodded his head, “Yeah.” Nodded again, “Uh huh.” Nodded a third time. He turned to me and held out the phone, “It’s your mom.”

“What?” I climbed down from the chair and took the phone from Christos. If my mom could only see me now, standing naked in Christos X-rated painting brothel. It gave me exquisite satisfaction.

“Hello, Mom,” I said sarcastically. I put it on speaker phone so Christos could hear everything. I didn’t want to have to repeat whatever horrid words my mom had to offer. I was pretty sure I was going to be doing a lot of crying to Christos as soon as I hung up. But I was determined to do my best not to shed a tear while my stupid mom was on the line. Stupid bitch.

“Sam,” she said, “Who answered your phone?” I noticed that her words were slurry. Had she been drinking? I don’t think I’d ever seen my mom drink.

“Christos.”

“I might have known,” she chuckled.

“Then why did you ask?” I sneered. I was already on the defensive, which wasn’t a surprise considering my mom had turned out to be the real harlot in our family.

Mom poured out another syrupy, drunken chuckle.

“Why did you call, Mom?” I grunted.

“I wanted to find out what stories your father has been telling you.”

“Stories? He told me you left him and are living with some guy with a motorcycle.” I glanced over at Christos, who watched me intently.

He winked and whispered quietly, “Guys with motorcycles are always trouble.”

I could tell he was trying to be supportive by being funny. I wasn’t really in the mood for a laugh anymore. Funny how my mom could ruin my good mood like a neutron bomb. But I flashed a flat smile at Christos and rubbed his arm affectionately.

“Did your father tell you anything else?” Mom asked in a friendly voice.

“No, that’s pretty much all Dad said.”

Oddly, my mom was being vaguely polite. A first for her. Was she being careful because she knew she was in the wrong? Maybe. I didn’t really know. It was possible my Dad had given me a doctored version of events. His side of the story. But that didn’t seem like him. No, my dad prided himself on telling the truth, even when it hurt people’s feelings. He said a white lie was still a lie. Honesty was more important to him than social graces. Or my feelings when I was a little girl. And a teenager. And a young adult. But at least in this case, it meant I knew what was going on between them. If my mom was about to make up a bunch of stories that pointed all the blame at my dad, I would know she was lying.

My mom inhaled deeply over the phone, “Sam, I’m asking your father for a divorce.”

CRACK!

My mom managed to slap me from three thousand miles away. She had demon powers, I had no doubt.

“Have you told Dad?” I growled, suddenly angry. I don’t know why, but I felt very protective of him all of a sudden. Maybe his honesty, however harsh it may have been to deal with growing up, was worth more than I’d given him credit for all these years. My dad would never do all the sneaking around my mom had been up to lately.

Mom said, “Not yet. I wanted to tell you first.”

Somehow, I felt like she was betraying Dad a second time, like she should’ve had the courtesy to tell him before anybody else. Maybe she was too chicken to do it. Maybe she was already trying to get me to take her side in the divorce. It was the only rational explanation for her politeness.

“Sam, do you have anything to say?” Mom asked.

“What, other than you’re a bitch?”

I expected my mom to lash out at me. It was her standard strategy when I got defiant.

“I deserved that,” she said calmly.

“You deserve a whole lot more than that!” I shouted. “Why did you do it, Mom? Wasn’t Dad enough for you?” I couldn’t stop myself. It just came rolling out.

“These things are complicated, Sam. I love your father, but…”

“But what, Mom?” I demanded. I was shaking, my heart was pounding, and I was as hot as an oven.

“But things weren’t…working out,” she sighed. “They haven’t been working out for a long time.”

“What do you mean? Things looked fine to me! You guys were fine at Christmas! How could they have gotten so bad in only a few months?”

Why the hell was I trying to hold my parents’ marriage together? I’d always had nothing but disdain for them. What the hell was happening to me? I hated the way this situation was making me feel.

Christos slid his arm around my shoulders and I leaned against him.

“It’s hard to explain, Samantha,” she sighed softly.

Samantha? She never ever ever called me Samantha unless she was really mad at me. But she wasn’t yelling. She sounded…sad.

“Well,” I hissed and cried at the same time, “do your best to explain it.” Silent tears dripped from my cheeks, onto my naked body. So much for not crying until I got off the phone. I suddenly felt way too naked. I walked over to the chair where my robe hung and slid it on.

“Samantha, the spark between your father and I has dimmed.”

Then I remembered all the passion in my mom’s voice every time she’d warned me that Christos would love me and leave me a broken woman struggling to pick up the pieces of my life. Had Mom been mourning the loss of a passion she had once known but had lost years ago?

Geez, I didn’t know the first thing about adult relationships and marriage.

I steeled myself for what I had to ask next. “Mom,” I sniffed, “is Dad my dad?”

“What?” she said, confused.

“Is Dad my father?”

She chuckled, “What are you talking about, Samantha? Of course he’s your father.”

Why was she making this so hard? Now I was shaking again and my robe felt sweltering. “Is Dad, you know, my biological father?”

There was a very long, drawn out silence. It lasted for months.

“Of course he is, Sam,” she chuckled. “Where did you get such a crazy idea?”

Was she lying? She had to be lying. “Tell the truth, Mom.”

“I am telling the truth, Samantha. I would know if you were some other man’s daughter. That’s crazy.”

I had my lie detector turned on to the most sensitive setting. It all sounded true. “You mean it?”

My mom sighed. “Do you want to get a DNA test? If you don’t believe me, I’m happy to do it. Where did you get this idea anyway, Sam?” she asked with a combination of urgency and concern. “Did your father tell you?”

“No,” I said.

“Then who?” she demanded.

“I don’t know.” I wasn’t going to try to explain my soap opera logic to my mom.

“Well it’s crazy, Samantha. You are Bill’s daughter, and I’m your mom. Okay? You have no idea how much your father and I love you, no matter what is happening between him and I.”

Why did that make me want to cry ten times harder than I already had? Maybe my parents weren’t as lame as I’d thought. “Then why are you leaving Dad?” I sobbed. I needed to sit down. I looked around for the nearest chair. But Christos had already wheeled one of the office chairs in the studio over to me. I sat down and he kneeled beside me, hugging me around my shoulders.

“It’s complicated,” my mom said. “Isn’t that what you girls say nowadays?”