A Mother's Lust Ch. 12

Karla had stepped very close to Marilyn now. Her mother wasn't flinching, but I immediately grew worried. Her muscles were tensing up, and I didn't have a doubt Karla could hurt the older woman without much difficulty. Maybe even worse.

"I won't deny that I took pleasure in disciplining you," she was still staring her daughter in the eyes. "You were... deserving, to say the least. I stand by that. Every ounce of pain I delivered onto you was deserved. It was right. Can you say the same about what you're doing to your own son?"

I noticed Karla raising her hands, very slowly. Judging by the shape of her hands, she was about to grip Marilyn's neck. Her mother kept talking, seemingly oblivious to it.

"You want to throw a tantrum about me enjoying your suffering? Go ahead. But I never released my cruelty on anyone that didn't deserve it."

"I didn't deserve it!" Karla put her hands around Marilyn's neck at last. Her mother's hardened eyes widened a little, but her hands remained motionless. "You looked for any excuse to hurt me! To isolate me! YOU MADE ME LIKE THIS!"

At this point, I was worried my friend's music wasn't loud enough to conceal the screams. We were, after all, still undressed. I was also worried about Karla's hands, firmly gripping Marilyn's neck. I had already learned, firsthand, that she was definitely strong enough to strangle someone to death.

"Karla..." I tried to intervene. Only when I got closer did I notice she wasn't strangling her mother yet. "We need to be careful."

Her green eyes were shining with something other than malice, now. Tears. I had never assumed a woman like Karla was even able to cry. Marilyn was doing to her what I had routinely failed to do during the many instances of our affair when I was driven by my hatred of her daughter.

"I've fantasized so much," she had a bitter smirk on her lips. "So much about putting you through even half of what you forced me to endure."

Marilyn did not look at all worried or fazed by the situation she was in. Her expression remained perfectly neutral when she spoke again:

"I'm waiting."

By now, I was just about ready to strangle Marilyn myself. Clearly, she was not keen on making things any easier for us. Her daughter's knack for being infuriating clearly had come from there. Karla got ahead of me, though.

Marilyn let out a grunt as Karla's fingers tightened around her neck. A look at her trembling hands was enough for me to tell she was bunching them into fists, but refusing to fight back.

"Karla," I put a hand on her shoulder. She seemed to be ignoring me. "Karla!"

Marilyn's eyes did not lose any of their hardness. Even as her face reddened, her serene, cynical smirk would not leave her lips. As the seconds crawled by, I noticed the strangling slow down. In no time, Karla lowered her head, then her arms, then herself.

I watched in disbelief as Marilyn took a deep breath and coughed almost politely. She didn't even seem willing to look at Karla, now sniffling on her hands and knees in front of her. After rubbing her neck, Marilyn spoke again, keeping her eyes on me.

"You should both get dressed. It's about time we left this kitchen."

Just as I knelt beside Karla, Marilyn addressed her grandson for the first time since she'd walked in on us. Her creepy little smile only widened as she spoke to him.

"Meanwhile you," she walked up to him. "You have some dishes to clean. Best get to it."

From that moment on, Marilyn took my friend's spot on the chair while he worked on the task that should have been completed by now. With her legs crossed and her contemptuous expression, she looked almost regal. It certainly helped that Karla and I remained on our knees a while longer.

She hadn't stopped crying in the meantime. And I felt even less equipped to handle her sniffling than I usually did when dealing with regular women. I kept an arm wrapped around her shoulders, praying to God she wouldn't just lash out and strangle me in a flash.

"Talk to me, Karla. Please..."

There was a long moment of silence, during which all I could hear was Karla's sniffles. Those and the damn playlist on the counter, which Marilyn had deemed fit to leave be a while longer.

"Peter," she eventually spoke. "Unless you are willing to get really hurt, I need you to get away from me."

My mind was so focused on her distress I didn't even think through the implications of her warning. Namely, how it was the first time Karla had ever offered me any mercy as far as pain was concerned.

"I want to help-"

"I don't want you to see me like this!" she hissed. "You need to get dressed. You need to leave."

"You need to let me help you," I declared. "I'm in love with you. And I want to comfort you. You've given me a lot, remember? Let me give you some comfort."

Karla spent another moment in silence. Her eyes seemed focused on something outside the kitchen. Or on nothing. She hadn't bothered to push her red curls away from her eyes. I let my hand caress her shoulder and pulled her slightly closer to me.

"No," she said abruptly. "Get dressed and leave, if you ever want to see me again."

That little sentence. I would struggle to pinpoint the times Karla had managed to hurt me as much as she did when she said that. To think she would threaten me with never getting to see her again was astonishing. I was legitimately stunned. Thinking about the possibility of her being capable of following through with it broke my heart yet again.

I dared to disobey her a little. Just as I was standing up, I planted a kiss on her cheek. Karla barely reacted, apart from her eyes showing a little surprise. Before I could overstay my welcome, I let her be and fetched my clothes.

Marilyn watched us with an almost disinterested expression as Karla and I got dressed in silence. My friend's aggressive playlist, which had previously given us some cover, was now the only thing piercing the silence in the kitchen. As the first person to get dressed, I walked up to the older woman, who remained seated on her 'throne'.

"Why do this?" I had to ask. "If you're not going to reveal the affair, why get involved at all?"

Her eyes conveyed her puzzlement in a similar way to Karla's, with glimpses of curiosity in the mix. It was as if she was regarding me for the first time since she'd walked into that room. Soon enough, I was also given one of her signature smiles.

"Oh..." she waved a hand dismissively. "Discipline, authority, fun. You seem to understand the appeal of this by now."

"And what we did in the bathroom?" I asked, more than a little annoyed.

"Being a good mother sometimes means taking your daughter's toys away," she smirked. It was the most detestable expression I had ever seen on someone's face.

I glanced at Karla again, hoping to see just the faintest sign of her changing her mind about accepting my help. Seeing her avert her eyes broke me. I wanted to help her. I wanted to put Marilyn in her place. I even wanted to take her with me and 'save' her from her family. Never in my life would I have imagined Karla needing saving from her family, rather than the other way around.

But I didn't do any of that. I feared Karla would actually go through with her threat of never seeing me again. I feared Marilyn and what she could do with the knowledge of the affair. I even feared Betty and the secrets she may have unwittingly revealed all this time she was left unsupervised in the living room.

When her son was done doing the dishes, we left the kitchen. And moments later, I would excuse myself and leave the potluck early. I still feel like a coward for having done it.