Aftermath

I stared at her crow's feet and the gray at her temples. Her makeup was smeared and her hair a tangled mess. I glanced down to her chest, her breasts hanging limply sideways, deflated and empty. Every mole, every wrinkle, every sign of age was clearer in the morning light.

She stirred, and my heart dropped. She opened her eyes and looked up at me, slowly coming to, something working behind her eyes. She smiled at first, smiled lovingly. But the smile slowly dissipated.

"Oh god..." she said. "Jason..."

Her voice was tremulous. It had a powerful impact on me. A pressure built behind my eyes. She continued staring at me, and we found ourselves in a loop of mutual fear and anxiety.

Finally, unable to face her any longer, I stood up and made my way quickly to the bathroom, leaving her on the bed. I leaned over the sink and stared at myself in the mirror. I was monstrous, hideous, face puffy with sleep and sin. There was a smell on my fingers that make my stomach jerk, and I looked down to the drain on the sink, wondering if I might vomit.

There was a knock at the door, but I didn't answer. She knocked again, this time more loudly and forcefully. Was that anger?

"What?" I said. My voice was empty.

She said something that I couldn't quite hear.

"What?" I repeated, more loudly, an embarrassed, familial anger I hadn't felt in years bringing itself to the fore. It surprised even me.

"Your clothes," she replied, and I could now clearly hear the frustration and stress in her tone. My stomach lurched again - it was a tone she always used when I was younger, when she was mad at me, when she needed me to do what she wanted right now.

I opened the door a crack and she shoved her hand forcefully through it, haphazardly dropping my pants and shirt on the bathroom floor before slamming it shut behind her.

"What about my underwear?" I asked.

"I don't see it," she replied with exasperation. "Just... get dressed."

I felt the adolescent urge to argue with her, to yell at her. Why did she always have to be like this? Why couldn't she just calm down? Just find my fucking underwear? Just look for it! But I controlled it, kept it inside, and threw on my shirt and pants from the night before.

There was only one way out of this bathroom, and that was back through the bedroom. I couldn't face her, not yet, and so I sat on the toilet with my head in my hands. My flaccid penis hung below me, into the toilet bowl; I touched it lightly with my index finger. It felt both crusty and sticky - the coat of vaginal exocrine from the night before had congealed, leaving it sticky, while my own fluids had dried on top.

I urinated.

Numbness washed over me as the pee streamed forth, the stress having frayed and overwhelmed my nerves so completely that it left them fully desensitized. An anesthetic.

When did I start... thinking about her this way?

"Forever," I whispered to myself. But that wasn't true.

I had certainly fantasized about mothers and sons forever. But not her. For most of my post-pubescent life, if she entered my mind while I was in the process of pleasuring myself it was certain to destroy the mood. I didn't want to think about her that way. I couldn't think about her that way.

No. Not until... maybe a year ago. I could remember it now, vaguely at least. Late at night, on the computer, trying to find something, anything that could really thrill me, and yet falling short. As I worked myself higher and higher, she popped into my mind's eye, looking at me with sultry desire. And, for the first time in my life, rather than killing the mood, her visage produced that familiar tingling in my crotch, that bubbling concoction deep in my pelvis, followed by a burst of excitement.

Why it happened in that moment rather than any other, I will never know.

Though there was a first time the thought of her aroused me, there was no point at which it transformed from an occasional thrill to my main fantasy. It was a slow and gradual process. But over time she occupied an almost monolithic place in my private sexual world - a world that increasingly intruded on my day-to-day life.

tap tap

My thoughts were interrupted by a gentle knock on the door.

"Jason?" came the voice from the other side. It sounded worried, but no longer angry.

"Yeah?" I replied, trying to keep my voice measured.

"Do you want to tal..." She paused, reconsidering her phrasing. "Are you ready to come out?"

Though her voice still contained a germ of stress, she was calmer and more measured than I had imagined she would be.

"Do you need to pee?" I asked.

"No..." she said. "That's... Can you just come out?"

"Okay," I finally said.

I took a deep breath and, with a few hesitant steps, made my way through the door. She was standing about halfway across her bedroom, watching nervously. She wore a pair of soft, plaid pajama pants and a light green, slightly-too-large tank-top. I could see from the red puffiness of her eyes that she had been crying.

She stood there for several moments, reading whatever she could off of my face as she rubbed her hands together lightly, rocking side to side with discomfort.

"Can I... hug you?" she asked, tenderly, nervously.

"... sure," I replied. In fact, I did not want her to. Or did I? I craved her unconditional, maternal love and comfort. But this was no longer on offer - not alone. It was inextricably linked with that other thing.

She approached nervously and wrapped me loosely in her desperate embrace.

"Oh, honey," she said, the emotion trembling in her voice, as her embrace tightened. I did not feel relief, anxiety, or anything else I could discern - my emotional range was still attenuated - but nonetheless I returned her embrace automatically.

When she broke the hug, I looked down to avoid her eyes and noticed she was not wearing a bra; there was a momentary stir in my pelvis when I saw the shape of her breasts and the small protrusions of her nipples through the material. But it was quickly washed away by a wave of embarrassment, and I dismissed the feeling from my mind.

After a few moments she pulled me down to the bed, holding me, and finally my feelings sharpened and I felt my eyes once again well with tears. She grasped me harder and began sniffling herself.

"Sorry..." I gasped.

"No... don't," she interrupted, and I could hear her voice tremble.

There was a short silence.

"I feel... disgusting," I said, the words coming out almost involuntarily.

She quieted me with a gentle, drawn-out shush, and began running her fingers along my back. "We made a mistake," she replied quietly, her head still pressed against me shoulder, her voice still unsteady.

I felt a calming shiver run down my spine. Was that the unconditional love I craved?

"Just a mistake, baby. That's all. It was just... a mistake." Her repeated phrasing was unnerving, as though she were trying to convince herself as well as me.

She broke the hug, and we stared at each other for a few moments. Her eyes had turned red and puffy once again, though it was clear she was trying to project a sense of calm. She picked at her own fingernails on her lap, and then stood and paced slowly, trembling slightly.

As she walked back across the room, I saw her shape in the pajama pants and tank top, and once again I felt a momentary pang of disgust-turned-arousal, a feeble rubber band snap inside my crotch that only barely made itself known to my dulled senses, pushed aside almost immediately by shame when she turned to face me again.

"Sorry," I repeated, apologizing for the fleeting feeling that I had no control over and she could not possibly have known about anyway.

"No, stop," she said. "No more apologies, okay? No more. Let's just..." She sat next to me again. "Let's just pretend it never happened, okay honey? Let's just... just forget about it forever."

I nodded. An awkward silence crept over the room, during which our eyes met several times before darting away again. I felt that small pang again in my crotch as I looked at her chest, and knew that I needed to leave.

"I'm going to go," I said suddenly.

Mom nodded and smiled with sadness, eyes watering once more.

As I stood up, I saw the corner of my underwear sticking out from under the blanket. I pulled it out, slowly. With it came her white panties. I briefly regarded both with disgust before handing back her undergarment. She thanked me quietly, refusing to look at it.

I began to walk off.

"Jason?" she said. Her face was sunken and nervous. She seemed to tremble. "Please... uhm..." She looked down, and grasped her own arm across her chest.

"Please what?"

She rubbed her hands together.

"I still want to hear from you, okay? Don't go silent."

I nodded.

"Promise me?" she said, her voice trembling.

"I promise."