Photographs Ch. 02

DISCLAIMER:This is included in the novel/novella category because of length. It is a mother/son incest story. There are also instances of abuse (two of them, which are not the focus of the story). As far as heat level, this story is quite tame, and if you are look for page after page of screaming sex, you might want to look elsewhere. If you want a STORY, please read on.

That week, the seed of desire that had been planted the night Danny witnessed his father beating his mother found fertile ground. Each time Danny looked at Christie, he wanted her more. It would hit him at odd moments. Watching her long hands deftly move between pots at the stove, he would have a sudden image of them wrapped around his cock. Occasionally he would have to leave for his room, and when this happened he often masturbated to that same fantasy, or stronger ones -- her lips stretched and her mouth full of cock was a favorite. Her shapely body lying naked below him, her expression lost in ecstasy. Going down on her.

And it would hit him at predictable times. When he hugged her he had the strongest longing to bury his face into her shoulder, inhale her light perfume, and press kisses against her neck. If he held her a little closer than before, or a little longer, Christie had given no sign of noticing that Danny could see.

He never saw the thoughtful looks she gave to his back as he walked away.

#####

Christie knocked on Danny's door early on Monday of the first week of January. He groaned and rolled to face away from the door. "Go away," he said when she knocked again.

"Want to earn a little extra money, Danny?" she called through the door.

Money? Money always tempted, but not quite as strongly at 6:45 a.m. on a school holiday as it did at other times. "How much money?" he asked.

"Fifty dollars. A hundred if you work all day. We've got lots of filing and I need someone to go through the mail and pay the bills while Monica is out." Monica, her secretary, had been gone for a week, would be gone for another, and the work was piling up.

Danny rolled out of bed, pulled on a robe and came to the door to open it a crack. "She always bitches about me leaving her stapler in the wrong place."

"You're never there when she does."

"Point. I'll be down in ten minutes."

#####

He drove with her to the office, having elected to work all day. It was a small, two-room affair within walking distance of the courthouse. Christie tried to get the accounting system on her secretary's computer, but it wouldn't boot up. She went into her own office, and logged into the computer at her desk. "Use this one for today. You remember how to use the software?"

"Yeah, it's simple. I don't need to put the codes on anything?"

"Do it if you can figure them out." She gestured toward a big stack of files in the corner of her secretary's office. "Um, that's the filing." Then she pointed to a basket on the desk. "Mail. Do the mail first and pay any bills due in the next week."

"There has to be over a single week's worth of mail there. What does Monica actually do?"

"You know she only works part-time, but I think Monica is working hard to earn her place on the unemployment line."

"I hope so," he said, rolling his eyes.

"Answer the phones?" she asked hopefully.

"Sure. I'll just say you're in court and take messages."

"Thank you, sweetie. It's better if they talk to a human being, even if I'm not here. You're really helping me out," she said and went up on tip-toes to kiss his cheek. For a blissful second he was enveloped by the scent of her, something light and floral, and the warmth of her body. Where once it would have warmed him, this time his cock twitched. Luckily, she was out the door moments later.

Danny lugged the basket of mail to Christie's desk, taking advantage of her big comfortable chair after first adjusting it to his greater height. For an hour and a half he dutifully opened mail and paid bills, working slowly and concentrating hard to make no mistakes. It had been a few months since he had done this, and he felt rusty. A phone call interrupted him at ten o'clock, and after answering it he decided he had earned a break. He made a pot of coffee and sat down back at his mother's computer to see if she had any games. Not finding any, he went online and browsed through websites. After looking at several, he wanted to get back to one of first sites he'd found but couldn't find it, so he pulled up the browsing history. Danny didn't know it at the time, but what he saw there would change the course of his life.

Christie had been looking at porn.

Several times a week.

He wet his lips and tried to imagine his sophisticated, elegant mother sitting in her office and watching people get off for the camera on her lunch hour. He looked at the date and time stamps -- Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays. All days when Monica didn't work, usually at lunch except for on Saturday. Did she lower her blinds and lock the door? She must, he thought. Did she finger herself in her office? The thought had him hard. His hand hovered over the mouse. He wanted to see what she was looking at, but it was so personal. It felt like a betrayal.

Danny looked behind him at the window, open to a small, paved pedestrian mall. With knees that were just a bit weak, he rose and lowered the blinds. If his mother came he would say the glare was bothering him. It was sort of true.

The most recent site advertised itself as Romantic Interludes. Danny sneaked looks at porn before, and Romantic Interludes was very tame compared to some of the things Danny had seen. It was romantic. Satin sheets and candlelight. If he had never seen his stepfather beat her, if he didn't know that he had blackmailed her into sadistic sex, he would have wondered what the turn-on was. But Danny had seen, and he knew this was something that Christie had never had. The thought was sad enough to wilt his hard-on.

This window into Christie's soul felt too personal. He didn't know if he could bear to learn something so painful, but he looked on. He found a couple other similar sites. Many of the couples she had watched were mixed: a white woman with an African-American or Hispanic man.

A site that featured college-age boys jacking off for the camera had him intrigued. Another site she visited often featured slightly older men doing the same thing. The final category were mixed-race couples, mostly white women with men of color.

His erection grew painfully hard, but he didn't dare do anything about it. Someone, like his mother, could walk in at any time. She would be selecting jurors all morning, so he wasn't too concerned, but it might pay to be cautious.

There were two videos that she watched often enough -- four times in the last month for one and six times for the other -- to link to directly rather than going through the site's main page. The first showed a buff Hispanic man of about twenty with a woman around twice his age. The woman had a passing resemblance to Christie, pretty and dark-haired. The second video, the one she watched more than any other, showed a fair, blond woman with a tall young man with dark skin. He didn't really resemble Danny aside from height and ethnicity, but something about the pairing of these two -- one dark, one so fair -- struck home.

He quickly closed the browser, rose, and headed to the small bathroom off Christie's office. Safely behind a locked door, he fumbled with his zipper in his haste to pull out his cock.

Danny imagined Christie sitting at her desk, watching the couples fuck. Perhaps she pinches her nipples first, through the fabric of her suit. From there she unbuttons her blouse, slowly, button after button. Her bra is satin, black against her fair skin. She pushes it down, exposing her breasts to the cool air, nipples hard. He wondered for a second what they looked like, and decided they would be the size of small cherries and taste as sweet. He swallowed, wishing he was sucking and tasting those sweet sweet breasts right then. He spread pre-cum on his dick and stroked in a fast, steady rhythm.

Her stockings. He thought her stockings are the kind that only went thigh high, leaving her cunt bare to her touch. She raises her skirt up her shapely thighs, and thrusts her pretty pussy forward. Her fingers dip into the juices streaming from inside her and she licks them before slipping them into the folds around her clit and massaging herself there.

Then Danny walks in. His mother looks at him with heavy-lidded eyes, a slight smile on her face. Danny kneels before her, unbuckling his belt and unzipping his pants. He tastes those sweet-cherry nipples, kisses her ruby mouth, and thrusts his cock deep inside.

In the office bathroom, the real Danny came, spurting cum all over. He leaned back against the chilly tile wall, still stroking his cock, now sticky with cum. He imagined his mother again, this time naked on her knees before him, licking his cock clean. He looked down at the dick in his hand, but the sight of cum on his good pants put a damper on his arousal.

"Shit!"

He tried to stuff his penis back in his pants, still half-erect and coated with cum on the end. He pulled it out again and reached for a paper towel. Several swipes with a damp towel later, he got it stowed away and went to work on his pants. And the sink. And the floor.

"I am an idiot," he said. It took a full five minutes before he was presentable again and able to return to the office. It looked exactly like he had left it. Danny raised the blinds and settled behind the desk to think. He had a lot to think about.

######

By 11:45 they had chosen a jury. Judge Risberg called a recess, and Christie walked back to her office. She found Danny chatting with Rafael Martinez, an investigator she sometimes hired.

"Buenos dias, Ralph."

Ralph, who had been raised in the States, replied with a mock Irish accent, "Top o' the mornin' to ye, Lassie."

"Top o' the mornin'?" Danny said. "I didn't think people said that anymore, even to joke."

Ralph didn't seem to mind. "I have to properly greet this fine Irish lass."

Christie laughed and said, "What are you doing here? I think my subpoena is for tomorrow."

"I'm here on another case." Ralph was fit, but not bulky, and with Christie's two-inch heels she stood just a little taller than him. But he had a calm, self-assured manner. Like many Hispanic men Christie had known, he always spoke quietly. She liked his company. He made her feel comfortable and safe.

"Come to lunch with us. Do you have time?"

"I was hoping you would ask that. It's what I came for."

They walked down the mall to a nearby deli where Ralph and Christie ate lunch together several times a month. Christie ordered a salad and the men had sandwiches, which they ate outside at an umbrella table. They talked about business for a while, and then Danny's basketball schedule. Talk turned to Ralph's large family, sisters that were pregnant and brothers getting married, and Christie proposed a question that she had been meaning to ask.

"Ralph, why aren't you married. Aren't you my age?" Suspecting he had feelings for her to one degree or another, she only dared bring up the subject because Danny was with them to act as a buffer.

"Christie,amiga, the best women are all taken." He smiled a little mischievously. "It's the single life for me until one of them comes to her senses."

Christie smiled, and Danny watched this little exchange with avid interest. Considering his mother's obvious taste for men of color, and the tiny blush on her cheeks, he wondered if she was attracted to Ralph. An irrational jealously gripped him, and he found himself clenching his fists. Don't be silly, he told himself, but the truth was, as he had learned that morning, there were things about his mom he never knew.

Danny looked around the mall to calm himself and found something that sent his adrenalin spiking again.

"Mom," he said quietly.

She turned toward him, the smile she had been giving Ralph still on her face. It faltered at the expression on his own. "What?"

"Don't look, but Dad is outside Starbucks watching us."

Her expression froze, and then turned neutral.

"Thank you, Danny. I think it best if we act as if he wasn't here."

Ralph's eyes darted between them, then he turned his head slightly and took in Steve calmly drinking coffee and watching them as if he were at a play and they the show. "This is the third time," Ralph said.

"Oh, it's far more than that. He's here several times a week."

"How long has he been doing this?"

"Since I got married. It's part of his routine. Go to the studio, take portraits, spy on Christie, go back to the studio, take more portraits," she said, and a touch of bitterness might have colored her voice.

"How do you stand it?" Ralph asked.

She exchanged a glance with Danny, who had a grim expression. Steve didn't always beat her, he didn't always beat her when he saw her having lunch with Ralph, or she might have stopped, but tonight would be the night. She knew it, and she could tell Danny knew it.

"I'm used to it. This is my life," she added, and her words were for Danny, who still held her gaze. "It's best if we finish up and take our conversation to the office."

#####

Steve Tyler took in everything. The way she smiled at Ralph, leaning in slightly. The little blush. He'd made Christie his life's study, every nuance of behavior. Just as he had known about Danny's girlfriend, he knew what Christie was thinking and feeling right now. His self-control asserted itself, and his right hand froze around the coffee cup, keeping him from crushing or throwing it. To all around, he was a man calmly drinking coffee on a brisk January day.

He didn't beat Christie to punish her; beatings were more about his sexual needs. Besides, she didn't often give him reason for anger. But sometimes he had to exert his control to keep his house and his life in order. She was headstrong now and then. That MacAwley spirit. If he gave her a lot of free rein, it was because he recognized that, paradoxically, it kept her easier to control in those times when he demanded obedience. He could only push her so far, but tonight he would remind her that there was only so far that she could pushhim.

######

At 3:00 Danny finished the filing. He went through his pockets, put his pocket knife on the desk, and walked over to the courthouse to watch his mother. Past the metal detectors, he went upstairs to the appointed courtroom and slipped inside, taking a seat toward the front so he could watch. Trials were not usually the riveting battles seen on TV. A lot of times they were plain boring. Danny only came because he didn't feel like reading the book he had brought with him that morning, and he liked to watch his mother.

Today she wore what he called one of her 'court suits'. Black skirt cut just above the knee, black jacket, white blouse, and black heels. A monochrome outfit that made the blue of her eyes even more shockingly deep. The suit made her look sophisticated and sexy at the same time.

And yet, hidden beneath that sophisticated outfit lay the fading marks of a caning and bruises from a leather strap.

A few minutes after he sat down, she took her turn at questioning a police officer. She rose from her seat and walked across the open space before the judge. He often thought of the way she moved in court as being like a big cat, a lioness, deceptively graceful beauty hiding the razor sharp claws she held in check until the right moment. Every eye was riveted to her, and everyone was equally shocked when she posed some question that betrayed her intelligence. Something so beautiful couldn't be so hard and ruthless inside, but that was the way Christie behaved in court. The defending attorney objected to something she said, and she calmly retracted it. Danny smiled. It would happen again. Christie would push as far as she could get away with.

Today, Danny watched her distractedly, thinking of her taste in porn. It was obvious she liked men of color. What he wondered most was if she had ever made the mental leap from men of color to her son. Did she fantasize about him while she masturbated? Danny didn't really think so, but if she did, her behavior toward him had been flawless in spite of it. No, he didn't think so, but even if she did, he was mature enough to know that it was a very very long step from fantasizing about something taboo while you masturbated to wanting to actually do it.

Sitting there, watching her, Danny made that mental step. He wanted to actually do it. Moreover, he believed that his mom needed what he could give her. She clearly was sexually frustrated. Lonely. Yes, she was very lonely. He imagined it couldn't be any other way.

Beginning today, Danny would actively try to seduce his mother. The only question now was how to go about it.

######

On the drive home, Christie was silent. They usually had something to talk about, so after awhile Danny said, "What's wrong?"

She shook her head slowly. "I hate this case."

"What's the case?"

"Civil suit against a drunk driver who left a little girl in a wheel chair. Hit and run."

"You defending?"

"No."

"Wouldn't the guy be in jail already?"

"He is, but the family wants damages."

"Does he have a lot of money."

"Some, but not a ton. If we win, he'll probably lose everything. His wife and kids will be in a bad way."

She braked suddenly and he braced himself, hand on the dash. "And the plaintiffs?"

"They are already losing everything trying to pay her medical bills."

"Shoot. Sounds like it sucks for everybody."

"And all because of one jerk's poor judgment. You think on that in the future when you're out drinking," she said.

"Will do, Mom."

"I'm serious, Danny."

Then he reached out to the steering wheel and placed his hand over hers. Warm and large against her much smaller one, dark skin over fair, she stared at the contrast they made.

"I will. I promise."

After a moment he drew his hand away. It left hers cold and feeling somehow wrong, as if something was missing. She stared at her hand for a moment until the car behind her honked and she drove on.