Beyond the Borderline

The very real peril should she discover us did little to deter my ongoing assault on Mom's virtue. As I heard Marcia's steps slowly progressed down the hall towards us, I came between Mom's thighs, shamefully squirting a load of sticky white juice all over the bottom of her panties and her upper thighs.

I frantically pulled my shorts up and practically dove into the kitchen nook as Mom struggled to pull her dress hem down over her ass. No more than a second or two later, Marcia appeared in the doorway.

Marcia stood very still for a moment and then spoke, apparently struggling to maintain a matter of fact tone, nodding at me.

"Good morning, Rick. I stopped by because I wanted to ask your mother a couple of questions. It seems though, that this might not be, ummm, the best timing for you guys," she said carefully neutral, glancing at Mom's legs. "If it's okay with you Jennifer, perhaps I'll come by a little later when it's more convenient."

With that, Marcia turned and left, slowly walking back to the foyer, where she let herself out quietly. She had kept expression neutral while speaking to us, but as she passed by me, I thought I saw her face slip into an expression of real shock.

My own gaze turned to where Marcia had glanced at Mom's legs and my eyes widened. I could clearly see a glistening rivulet of semen running down the inside of her knee, making its way to her calf. In turn Mom directed her gaze in the same direction and gasped when she saw the telltale of my lust.

Eyes flashing and flushed with rage, Mom strode to the nook and grabbed me by the arm jerking me to my feet, hissing with rage.

"Upstairs, right this minute!"

I have never heard such anger or venom in her voice. Her grip on my arm was so tight, so painful, that I thought her nails were going to draw blood. My heart was in my mouth and between our terribly close call and Mom's obvious fury, I knew that things were going to hit the fan, big time.

She practically dragged me upstairs to her bedroom. Thrusting me roughly through the door, into the center of the room she kicked the door shut as we passed over the threshold. She spun me around and what she did next shocked me to my core.

I never saw her hand move, but the blow was so swift and hard that it snapped my head back and I bit my tongue. The left side of my face was on fire and I could taste the coppery bitterness of my own blood in my mouth. Never in the 22 years of my life had Mom raised a hand against me. I had been grounded, sent to my room and forfeited privileges in the past for my misbehavior for some pretty serious transgressions, including nearly burning down our work shed when I was 10 while playing with matches and paint thinner, and wrecking the family car after having my license for only 2 months, but those were over and forgiven once I completed my penance for those mistakes. They were never mentioned again.

As Mom stood before me, her chest heaved and her eyes glinted with a cold fury I had never seen before. She had struck me so hard that her left breast had popped out of the bodice of her sundress in all its glory. The nipple was still erect from my previous caresses and I could see the slight glint of my saliva on her rosy pink areola. A small rivulet of my spend was visible on the inside of one of her knees, slowly dripping down to her calf. There were small whitish drops of my drying semen on the toes of both shoes.

She looked me over with a measuring glance, taking in the slight bulge of my now flaccid cock within my gym shorts and the dampness on the front of my pants. She took in a deep breath and I knew that my world was about to come to a crashing end.

"What the FUCK do you think you were doing?"

I was completely stunned. Mom had never, ever sworn at me before. In the past, she had always made a point to convey any anger with me in civilized, albeit scathing language.

"How could you be so careless and selfish? I told you no, and I meant no! But you wouldn't listen! You let you penis do your thinking for you and now that gossipmonger Marcia has suspicions about us! You wouldn't listen to me and you FORCED yourself on me, just because you needed to cum."

Her voice dripped with contempt, harsh with anger and slightly tremulous with fear, but I could also see tears starting to fill her eyes. The sadness I could see there was infinite, bottomless. I felt like I was going to die of shame. There was an ash taste of despair and loss in my mouth and I was consumed by a wave of nausea and dread.

"I knew it was a mistake to let us cross the line, but I loved and trusted you. I had thought that even though nobody else might understand, what happened between us was our special, loving secret. Now it appears that I am just a kinky way to get your rocks off. Well, I've got a news flash for you, buster. I am not a receptacle for you slimy lust. I will NOT be treated with such disrespect and I will NOT allow this to progress one inch farther. I want you to go to your room and stay there. I'm calling a cab to take me to the airport and you will not come down until I'm gone. Now get out."

There was so much I wanted to say, but all I could do was stare at my feet and mumble "I'm sorry Mom." That set off a new eruption.

"Sorry doesn't even come close to cutting it. Do you have even the faintest conception of what could happen if this gets out? I could lose EVERYTHING. All the things I gave up to raise you, the long hours of work at the practice, my law license, it could all be gone just like THAT! She snapped her fingers under my nose. "God knows what my mother and father would have thought of all this. They made tremendous changes in their own lives for ME, delaying their own plans so that I could graduate high school but still be at least a part time Mom to you while you were a baby. They were your day care as I was finishing college and made sure you were safe and loved while I worked my day job and went to law school at night. And now this...all of the sacrifices that have been made on your behalf are next to worthless, because you needed an orgasm. Well, I hope you enjoyed it, because there won't be another one, ever," she hissed, disgust and rage mingled in her voice.

I looked up at Mom. Tears were now flowing freely down her face. Her cheeks were red and blotchy and her normally well-coiffed hair was in disarray, partly hanging over her face. Her eyes were puffy and swollen now, bloodshot with her distress. She had tucked her breast back into the bodice of her sundress but still looked beautiful to me. Beyond that initial impression, I was too stunned to think. I simply could not grasp the enormity of my mistake

Quietly, but with steely determination, Mom said, "I meant it, Richard. Go to your room this instant. I need to get cleaned up to leave."

I stared at her uncomprehendingly, rooted to the spot, unable to process what had just transpired between us. At that point, Mom lost it for real.

Screaming at the top of her lungs, she threw a perfume bottle from her vanity at me.

"Get out you asshole! You son of a bitch, GET OUT!"

She burst into tears and stumbled into her bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

Choking back a sob, I fled. My shame and haste to leave was so great I caromed off the doorframe and careened into the hallway, barely able to breath. I felt faint. My vision had reduced to a tunnel and there was roaring in my ears. Somehow, I found my way to my bathroom, where I promptly threw up into the sink, not even making it to the toilet. After I cleaned up I went to my room and crawled under the covers. My self-loathing and fear was beyond description. I felt as though my life had ended. I wept like a baby.

A short while later, I heard Mom get into the shower. In my distress, subjective time seemed to have slowed to a crawl, but it still seemed as though her shower was going on for an inordinately long period of time. I started to worry. Throwing caution to the wind, I crept back to the master bedroom. Mom's travel clothes were laid out on the bed and her suitcase and carryon bag were by her vanity. It was then that I heard a soft thud. I could see that the bathroom door was open a crack.

With my heart in my mouth, I crept silently to the door on my hands and knees and put my eye up to the opening. I couldn't see much except a small corner of the floor of the shower. I could see Mom's calves and feet stretched out. From their position, I thought that she was probably sitting on the floor of the shower, legs out in front of her. It was then I heard a wracking cry, which quickly transformed into a retching sound and then a great burst of anguished sobbing. I saw Mom's legs and feet shift, her knees drawing up and her upper body gradually coming into view as she curled into a fetal position on the floor the shower, her back to me. My emotional demolition now complete, I shakily got to my feet and staggered back to my room.

The next hour was probably the most difficult thing I have ever endured. I lay on my bed, ears attuned to the slightest sound. I heard Mom come out of her room with her luggage and the bumping of the suitcases as she dragged them down the stairs. I heard her moving around in the kitchen and the sound of the microwave as she reheated her coffee. Things were then quiet for about ten minutes, when I heard the taxi pull into the driveway. There was a sound of closing car doors and then silence.

I felt as though a great weight was pressing me into my bed and I couldn't muster the energy to get up. Finally, after a long while, I found the strength to go downstairs. I went into the kitchen. The emptiness of the house fairly screamed at me. I could still my dried semen on the floor in front of the sink. The rest of the kitchen had been tidied up, plates and cups rinsed and put in the dishwasher. The coffeepot was unplugged. I cast my gaze over to the breakfast nook. It was then I saw the note on the table.

I slowly moved over to the table and picked up the single sheet of paper. My hands were shaking so badly that I could barely read her writing. Mom usually didn't communicate with me by writing notes, so I was scared to my marrow as I began reading. "If she's writing me a note, this is beyond horrible," I thought to myself. Instead of a message of doom though, I read the following: "Richard (Mom NEVER calls me Richard and now she had done so twice today) - Here is a list of chores for you to do while I'm gone. There are a lot of things that need doing, so if you get started today, you should have them finished by Friday, when I get back. Mom"

Sitting down absently at the table, I tried to make sense of the past couple of hours and what the note meant in that context. The aftermath of my kitchen imposition (yes, I could now see it as such) was etched into my memory by acid. I could still recall every detail of every minute prior to Mom's departure. As I leaned back in my chair against the wall of the nook, rubbing my bruised cheek, I kept coming back to one detail of Mom's tirade. When she mentioned Nana and Gramp's support of us as Mom finished her schooling, she didn't say that they would have been ashamed of our intimacy. She only talked about how I had endangered all the effort they put into helping Mom get established so she could support us.

"Could it be that she doesn't feel guilty about us?" I asked myself. A small glimmer of hope briefly flared in my heart, but I brought myself back to reality quickly enough. Mom was not the kind of person who agonized over mistakes. Perhaps our brief transgressions beyond the normal bounds of a mother and son's relationship were just so much spilled milk, which she would clean up and deal with as best she could, probably by ignoring it and never mentioning it again. Once again I tasted despair. "Rick," I thought to myself, "You are the biggest shit in the whole world. You just destroyed the most precious thing in your entire life for 2 minutes of selfish pleasure. What are you going to do now?"

The answer, I thought, was to be like Mom. Get tough and buckle down. What's done is done and can't be mended, so move forward as best you can. Be prepared to have to move out after Mom gets back from her trip. Forget about all of it.

I looked at the list of tasks Mom set for me and began planning. Perhaps a small apology could be made by doing an especially good job on the work in front of me. It probably wouldn't ever repair the damage I did, but it was a beginning.

I threw myself into the work. The pool got its first serious cleaning and maintenance in a couple of years, including repairing the leaking circulating pump and a complete teardown and rebuild of the heater. The backyard privacy fence was stripped and repainted. I applied myself like a demon to the tasks at hand.

Having so much to do during the day was helpful, but the nights were absolute agony. I could barely sleep, and when I did, the montage of images running through my brain would invariably torture me to wakefulness. Our amazing Fourth of July kisses, the first time I felt her breast, feeling her against my aching cock as we danced at the supper club. The slap to my face. The first time I caressed her pussy through her panties. The smell of her sex and its wetness on my fingers. her curled on the floor of the shower, crying. I doubt that I slept more than 3 or 4 hours a night, in spite of my physical exhaustion.

It was Wednesday. Today was the day to take out that badly cracked section of concrete in the driveway and put in a patch. I had the wheelbarrow and cement mix ready to go and sledgehammer and crowbar ready. It was going to be a long, dirty job, but I was determined to do it superbly for Mom. I stripped off my shirt and got down to business. By now, I was totally buzzed on excess coffee, sleep deprivation and physical exhaustion. I was a total basket case. Normally, when Mom traveled on business, we'd talk nearly every night, sharing the trials and tribulations of life on the road and the pain of being away from home. This trip, though, the only thing I heard from her was a one-line text telling me she had landed safely in Vancouver. Since then, nothing. Not another text, no phone call, no nothing.

As I pounded through the monotony of breaking up the damaged concrete, my mind wandered. I remembered the spectacular Fourth of July, our first "date," recalling the sparkle in Mom's eyes as she slow danced with me in the club, her acquiescence to my caresses of her lovely bottom as we moved across the floor and the brief but insistent push of her pelvis against my raging erection as we finished our dance. I felt myself beginning to get hard, my cock slightly flexing against the front of my gym shorts.

"Hello - earth to Rick!"

Oh crap, who the...

It was Marcia McCleary. She was standing at the bottom of the driveway, trying to get my attention. I quickly turned slightly so my hardening rod wouldn't be evident. Marcia was an attractive woman in her own right, but quite different in appearance from my mother. Where Mom was long and tall, Marcia was more petite and compact. She had lustrous brunette hair which she wore in a pageboy haircut. She favored conservative shorts and blouses when I had seen her in the past, which only partially concealed her athletic, trim figure.

Her bust was of average size, but the perpetually horny young male in me knew that the shape of her breasts was probably exquisite. By far and away though, her best feature was her ass. Even the somewhat old-fashioned shorts she wore did little to truly conceal its tightness and compactness. On more than one occasion in the past I had discretely admired her walking away from me, observing the captivating sway of her hips and the up and down oscillation of her cheeks that came with her quick, short stride.

One thing she had in common with Mom was that she was a single parent, also with a son, Shawn, just a couple of years younger than me. As I recalled, she frequently visited him on weekends at his college, which was about 200 miles away.

"Oh, Hi Marcia, is there something I could do for you?"

"There most certainly is, Rick. You seemed off in another world there while you were swinging that sledge. Your concentration was ferocious. I had to call you three times to get your attention."

"Oh, yeah, well...I guess I was a little lost in thought."

"Well, don't think too hard there. You're likely to hurt yourself with that big hard hammer."

Shit, had she seen my wood? When she called to me she was a good 20 or 30 feet away, and I had by now subsided a little bit in my shorts, so I was probably okay. Still, the double entendre was hard to ignore. Here I was, dressed only in gym shorts, bare chested and streaming sweat. What was going on?

Casting only the briefest of glances at my crotch, Marcia became serious. "I came by to talk to Jenny - there are a couple of things I need to discuss with her, if she's available."

"Shit fuck shit fuck shit fuck and DAMN," I thought to myself. "Here's where the chickens come home to roost." I was sure she wanted to confront Mom about the almost-seen events in our kitchen on Sunday. Our secret was going to be exposed for sure now. I had destroyed my mother's life.

Somehow, through a miracle, I was able to compose my features and keep my voice steady. "Gee, Marcia, I'm sorry, but Mom is traveling on business this week. She went out to the west coast on Sunday, just a little while after you came by."

"That's too bad, I really wanted to have a chat," she said, real disappointment in her voice.

"She'll be back in about a week or so," I volunteered. "You might try giving her a call in the middle of next week." I knew there was no way that Mom would want to talk with Marcia right after arriving home Friday evening, and that we had to have our own conversation first, if for no other reason than me telling Mom that Marcia was probably going to lower the boom on her. I hoped that a few days to ourselves would allow us to do some planning for the impending catastrophe.

"Can you let her know I'd really like to see her, once she's back? It's not a big deal, really, it's just that I've come to understand recently that we share some common interests. I just want to talk about those things, once she's got some time," she said sincerely.

The skepticism I felt about her motives must have been evident on my face, because she smiled reassuringly and patted my arm. "Relax, Rick. It's just a social call. Something I've been meaning to do for a few days, that's all."

"I'll let her know," I replied, struggling to keep my voice neutral and expression blank.

Marcia cast what seemed to be a rather frank and appraising eye over me as I leaned on the sledgehammer. "I've been watching you work on the house for the past couple of days. You have been going about things like a man possessed. You really ought to slow down and pace yourself a bit," she said with real concern. "You don't want to be a wreck when your mom gets back."

"Thanks, Marcia. I'll try to bear it in mind. It's just that there is a lot to do and I want to get it done right for Mom."

I don't know what possessed me to keep on talking, but there was something about Marcia's interest in my well being that somehow felt genuine.

"I'm a bit in Mom's doghouse right now," I confessed. "This is my way of trying to get back into her good graces. We had a bad argument, you see."

Marcia's eyes widened briefly in surprise and then narrowed. She seemed to stare off into space, struggling with something. Finally she nodded once, as if to herself, coming to some kind of decision.

"Rick, back when Shawn was still in high school, we once had a serious falling out. It was bad enough that it could have affected us for a long, long time. In the end though, we were able to deal with the problem, mostly because we were totally honest with one another. Shawn had done something that made me very angry, but we worked it out eventually and in the end, we became much closer."