Chalk and Cheese

"What the hell are you doing? You're worse than your -"

The only thing worse than being an abject failure in your mid-twenties, is being an abject failure in your mid-twenties and having moved back home, accidentally flashing your own mom in the bathroom who hates you anyway. But, hey, at least the job hunt was going ok. If I wanted to restart my career slinging pizzas.

Now, wait, before you go busting my chops too, I know pizza making is an honorable profession. I'm not a snob or nothing. I just feel like an MIT education should count for something these days. Even in AssEnd, USA. If anything, my degree is seen as a distinct disability in this one-horse wannabe town.

Mom was doing her best and I felt bad for getting on her tits. I just didn't seem to be able to help it. I was always fucking up, tag team fucking up with her and Kelly, my younger-older sister to be more correct. What can I say, I'd gotten used to the slob life of a bachelor, and was finding it tough to readjust. Who knew there were right ways and wrong ways to squeeze toothpaste or open milk cartons? That pizza boxes should go in the trash immediately after use? That the floor is not a temporary laundry hamper? Bedclothes need to be changed regularly? And now, that the bathroom is absolutely not a man's castle. It was bad enough that mom saw me with full morning wood - albeit tented inside my boxers rather than 'in the flesh' - that she now had to make a big song and dance to wake the whole apartment. Well, Kelly, anyway. Now she'd be on my case all day too 'what was mom giving you a bad time about this morning?' None of your business, geek!

Ok. Applying the brakes again here for a second. Pot most definitely calling the kettle black, I'll admit it. My pain in the ass sister, Kelly, was a geek, a super genius in fact, but then I had been a geek first, and she probably caught it from me. Geek, that is, not genius. I'm far from that. Why she ever chose to go to a school that was commutable from our shithole town, I'll never know. But here I was living in close quarters in a tiny, guess who lost the divorce settlement apartment, with two women who hated my guts and for whom my every breath seemed to be an insult.

Quick rundown for the perverts in the audience - if I can force myself: mom was mid 40s, plumpish, but in a way people would probably call pretty slim nowadays. Well rounded, I guess. She was short, dark, wide hipped, big breasted, and generally dressed like she was still in High School. Kelly, 20, was 5,5, blonde from a bottle, worked out every day and looked nothing like mom, bar her big breasts. Not that I was looking. She slobbed through every day in oversized sweats that pretty much made all that working out obsolete. But then, I guess I wasn't supposed to be the target audience.

To be honest, I couldn't be in a room with either of them for more than five minutes without skin and hair flying. If it wasn't one of them starting it, it was me. We had always been a little ... fractious ... but since I came back, it had become open warfare. I knew I wasn't pulling my weight. But hey, I was depressed, unemployed and, apparently, unemployable. And right now, I had to endure a lecture from my mom about flashing her. 'What if I had been your little sister?' She scolded. Christ, maybe lil sis wasn't the dried-up old husk her mother was and could appreciate the floorshow! Maybe she would have knocked? I didn't say. I just went red and mumbled an apology.

Later that same day, I did manage to land some work. Research in my field that could be conducted online. It was pretty low rent work, but I needed the money and the distraction. I told mom that I'd be able to hand up some. She muttered 'about time" and went about tidying up the mess in the kitchen I had been just about to clean. I retreated to my room and worked solidly for four hours.

I didn't have any friends locally, and no way to meet new people. I'd gone past the stage of asking people if they wanted to hang out. Besides, if I did manage to land a girl, I could hardly take her home. It all just seemed so unfair. My libido was so retrograde by now, I'd resorted to rummaging through the laundry bin for used underwear -- anyone's used underwear - and then beating off as I sniffed on the oh-so familiar heady smell wistfully, flicking through perfect pornstar porn on my phone in one hand. Then shoving them to the bottom of the pile so no one could guess. Like I say, sad sack.

"When are you moving out?"

Mom again.

"Oh, come on. I've only made about 80 bucks today. I'll need a lot more than that. At least let me become indispensable to the research team. I might actually have a regular income then."

That brought on the same old refrain.

"I didn't slave for years so you could prance off to college just so you could lay about ..." and on and on.

Kelly had lost all inhibitions in terms of calling me out too. The slightest infraction, she'd be on my case and running to tell mom. Together, they made my life hell. I cruised Google to see if the web had any ideas how to live with two people who obviously hate you.

Best answer was 'leave or do more about the house'. Christ, my mom could have told me that!

Days turned into weeks. The atmosphere continued to degrade. The two women in my life were openly hostile to my presence. Nothing I could do or say would make any difference. If I cooked, 'I made a mess of the kitchen'. If I cleaned I 'did a half-assed job'. I was at my wits end.

During a moment's soul searching, I tried to see where it had all gone wrong. I'd left for college around the same time as Dad. He'd buggered off with a legal secretary younger than me and didn't want anything to do with any of us. Mom and Kelly had resented me leaving too, but accepted college was a great way for me out of the shit we were all in. By the time I returned as a failure, resentfulness had festered into hatred, and I felt like a spare wheel from the day I arrived back and reclaimed my old room.

Mom and Kelly were thick as thieves, always chatting and laughing. But they'd clam up meaningfully the minute they heard me approach. Any attempt I made at conversation was shut down. I just couldn't figure it out. Again, I turned to Google to see why family falls out. Most likely answer I could gather from my research was the women in my life had sublimated the anger they felt towards my father and had directed it subconsciously in my direction. My leaving around the same time as him just made it deeper. And my returning -- rather than my father returning -- just intensified the feeling.

What could I do with that? Google had no answer, bar frank and open conversation. Something I was not prepared to have with my mom and my sister. We just weren't a frank and open kind of family.

Things rocked on rockily for a few more weeks. I could feel the tension rising day by day. I'd retreated to my room pretty much entirely just to avoid conflict. My research project was going well, and I had made virtual friends with a few colleagues. It turned out one lived nearby and was at a loose end too. We agreed to hook up and trawl the bars together.

Gary, it turns out, was around my age and had a fairly similar story to tell. Only difference being, he had his own apartment. We hit it off as friends and took to spending a few hours together every Friday. Gary had a fairly small social circle himself, but one evening he invited his sister, Deb, along. She was a real cracker. Short, blonde, fit and smart. She worked as a something in a local accountancy firm. We hit it off and would bump into each other very occasionally. I kind of got the impression I wasn't the only string to her beau. Anyway, one thing led to another and Gary, extremely reluctantly agreed to let us have some time in his apartment. "Be careful of her." He warned me. "She's got a load on men on the go." Long story short, I broke my dry spell. We began to see each other every month or so. I wanted more, but her job was very demanding apparently. Apart from occasional blue balls, it did give me something to take my mind off the home situation as well of a sense of life outside my home.

One day, months later, I spotted her from a distance leaving a local restaurant with a man. They were walking away from me on the other side of the road. A pang of jealousy made me follow them to the man's car. As they were getting in, the man half turned as he opened his own door, and I saw his face. It was my dad. Which, I realized, made Gary's sister, Deb, his mistress. And me the other man. My heart sank. I quickly made myself scarce and vowed never to talk to her again.

I spent a very conflicted night unable to sleep. I had really liked the girl but the thought that I'd been fucking my father's girlfriend left me queasy. When she texted me a few days later, I almost ignored her invitation.

That night, the sex was beyond intense, and when we finished, she asked me what had gotten into me. I refrained from telling her it was more like what had just gotten into her! My silence turned into an argument that I think she had been waiting for. Long story short, that was then end of my hook ups. That night, what I had been doing turned around and around in my head, and I was unable to sleep. It preyed on my and wracked me with guilt. If I didn't do something, I would lose my mind. I really needed to confide in someone, or I knew I would go do-lally. Or worse still, try to get back with Deb.

The next day at home, Mom was out, and I decided to do something even I knew was a stupid idea. I knocked on my sister's bedroom door.

"What?"

"Can I have a word?"

"I'm busy."

"It'll only take a second. I've no one else to talk to and it's driving me mad."

"Fine."

I stood in her room staring at the floor.

"Well, what is it?"

"I need to tell you something, sis. Just between the two of us? You have to promise not to tell mom?"

"What is it?"

"Promise me."

"Tell me what it is, and I'll tell you if I can make a promise like that." She said with open distain.

"I was seeing a girl." I said.

"Ew! Oh, come on. I don't want to hear about your conquests."

"It's not that."

"Did you get her pregnant? Mum will fucking kill y -"

"No. No. Nothing like that."

"Well, what then? It's not one of my friends, is it? Tell me you're not fucking one of my friends. Andi? Is it Andi? She was always asking about you." I filed Andi's name away for future reference. Very hot, if I remembered correctly.

"I'm not. It's worse than that."

"I'll be the judge of that."

I took a deep breath. This was a bad idea, but I had literally no one else I could talk to about it.

"She turned out to be Dad's girlfriend."

Silence. A look of puzzlement crossed her face, she made some mental calculations. They started roaring laughing.

"You're fucking Dad's girlfriend!?" She had tears in her eyes and was pounding her mattress with her fists. I stood, purple with embarrassment as she tried to regain composure and failed, several times.

"I always knew you were a pervert!" She managed to struggle out between wheezes.

"I didn't know who she was at the time. Well, at first, anyway."

"You mean you carried on fucking her after you found out? Oh, my, that's priceless."

"It's shit." I said staring at my feet.

"Does dad know?" She snorted.

"No, of course not."

"Oh, I'm sorry. That's the best laugh I've had I days. Dad would be livid."

"You're not going to tell him?!" I panicked, immediately regretting telling her.

"No, I'm not. But mum is going to laugh her head off."

"You can't tell mum!"

"Why not?"

"Because it's weird. Because I don't want her knowing about my love life."

"Because you don't want her to know her son has the same taste in sluts as his father?"

"It wasn't like that."

"So, incest boy. What was it like fucking your stepmom?"

"Agggh! She's not my stepmom. And it wasn't like that!"

Kelly composed herself and let the laughing fit subside. She looked at me earnestly.

"Ok. Seriously, though." She said, straight-faced. I nodded, encouraging.

"What was it like sharing sloppy seconds with your own father?"

And she was off again.

I stormed out of the room and decided I would never leave mine again. Ever. I was done. I may as well throw myself under a train or something. What had possessed me to tell Kelly anything?

I remained under my duvet for the rest of the day and the next. I didn't even come out for food or to pee. I'd heard mom come home and herself and Kelly talking. But the expected laughing never came. Eventually, in the depths of the night, I snuck to the bathroom and relieved myself for what felt like hours. Then I snook back to bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

That night I dreamt I was fucking my dad's girlfriend. She was in our favorite position. Me lying on my back, her cowgirl style, sliding back and forth in our slick sheen. Only, when I looked up at the woman writhing on top of me, it wasn't her face I saw. It was Kelly's. My sister in throes of ecstasy. She looked down at me with a horny gleam in her eye and said: 'how do you like that, incest boy?" as she rode me with great enthusiasm. I woke with my heart beating wildly, and wet boxers. I couldn't shake the image of my sister on top of me, speared on my cock. I could still see her little tummy, big breasts, her torso, her hips, her mouth and her lips. And above all, that hungry look in her eye. It haunted my waking moments from then on.

Kelly's face began to replace my dad's girlfriend's in my mind. Hell, it even replaced my catalogue of spank bank perfect porn stars' faces. I found myself obsessing about her, and sneaking her underwear from the laundry back to my bed where I made great use of them. The smell of her pussy became like Pavlov's dog to me. One sniff of her panties and I was rock hard. It disgusted me that I could get harder than I'd ever been in my life smelling my sister's scent and picturing her face above me. I became a wanking machine, tossing off every hour or so, filling my sheets with crusty spunk. Even I could smell the sex skank in my room.

Eventually, I decided I had to face the music. I left my room and had a shower. And yes, another wank. Then dressed and joined my mother and sister in the kitchen feeling as self-conscious as a spare rib at a vegan convention.

Kelly was all smirks, but to be honest, I couldn't look either of them in the face. I busied myself making some food and joined them at the table.

"Do you need ketchup with that?" Mom said to me. I nearly asked her to repeat the question it took me so by surprise.

"Em, if you wouldn't mind." I answered quietly, waiting for the sting.

She retrieved the ketchup from the countertop and placed it beside my plate.

"Something to drink? Milk? A beer?"

I stopped, food halfway to my face, and looked up. My mother's face was a mixture of concern and pride. What the fuck?

"Em, milk, please." I answered quietly again. She produced a glass of milk for me. I ate in silence. Kelly collected my plates and glass the minute I finished and set about washing them.

"I can do that." I said, too tired and weirded out to snap.

"No need. It's done." Kelly said breezily, all snotty tone gone from her voice. I was immediately on my guard. What the hell was going on? Who had kidnapped my family and replaced them with these two lookalikes?

We sat in silence for another few minutes.

"So?" Mom asked over casually. "Tell me about this girl you've been seeing."

Oh, oh. I looked up. Mom's face was all innocence, Kelly was suppressing a smirk.

"Um. She was nice." I said matching the casual tone. "But it's over now."

"Because you found out she was your dad's girlfriend."

"Yeah."

"Or after you found out?"

"What?"

"It's an innocent question." Mom said, smiling warmly. She placed her hand on mine on the table and I nearly jumped. This was the first physical contact we'd had since I moved home. I didn't enjoy it.

"Mom. I don't think that's really appropriate."

"Oh, don't worry about that, son. I'm only curious."

"Please." I added.

Mum moved from her place opposite me to sitting beside me. Kelly sat up on the counter and started swinging her legs, smiles all gone now.

"Tell me about her." Mum demanded, face impassive.

"Mom."

"Please." She smiled as if this was the most natural thing in the world.

I took a deep breath and told them about Gary, his sister and said that we'd hooked up a couple of times in Gary's apartment.

She nodded as if I'd answered something she already knew. Then we went our separate ways for the rest of the day. That night, I imagined I heard sounds coming from my mom's bedroom but put it down to the tv.

The next day, Kelly took off on a planned hiking trip with some of her college friends. They'd be gone for a couple of days. As much as she made my life a misery, she halved the panic I felt when confronted by mom alone. So, I knew I'd miss her.

Turns out, mom was all sweetness and light. She'd make me breakfast, offer to change my bed sheets, do my laundry. I really didn't know what to say.

We began having chats. Chats! She'd asked me how my day went, how work was ... she asked me was I going out ... what did I want for dinner. In terms of leaps in conversation, it was like I was suddenly hanging out with Oscar Wilde. Soon, we were discussing tv shows, politics, local celebrities and more. In just a few hours of Kelly being away, we'd gone from ice cold to thawed.

I should have known. Should have seen it coming. But, hey, I'm a guy. Subtle machinations work on us like slow blades in Dune.

We were chatting the evening Kelly left. I had, in this short time, forgotten everything that had happened over the preceding months, and was chatting away with mom like we were confidents. I didn't catch the import of the direction the question took until it was too late.

"I'm loving how we've been having these chats, son."

"Me too, mom. It's much nicer than where we were."

"Isn't it? And I just wanted you to know that you know you can tell me anything, son?"

"Thank, mom."

"I don't want anything festering away in that special brain of yours."

"Thank, mom. Right back at ya."

"Thank you, son. I appreciate that. It's funny you should say it. There has been something eating away at my brain."

"What's that mom?"

"Do you mind if we talk about your father for a minute?"

"Not at all, mom. If you don't"

"You see I never could quite figure out why he left me. I mean, I get that you said this Sue ..."

"Deb."

"... Deb ... is a good-looking child, yes? But your dad and I had so much together."

"Dad's an idiot, mom."

"Ah, thank you son. But you know that doesn't smell as sweet as it would have if you hadn't chosen this Deb one yourself."

"Oh, come on mom. That's different. I didn't know who she was -"

"No but you were drawn to her. Just like your father was."

"I'm not sure this is healthy mom."

"You said you would let me get things out of my head?"

"I know but talking about her doesn't seem appropriate."

Mom looked at me for a moment. Sighed.

"Now, are you going to help me get over what happened with your father..?" She gave me a glimpse of the mom I'd been dealing with for the last few months. I panicked.

"Anything mom."

"Ok."

She took a deep breath and ploughed ahead.

"Now, I need you to do something for me, son." Mom said after a moment. "I don't think you're going to like it, but it's important."

I nodded nervously.

"I need to you tell me all about her. And about what you did."

"What?!" I almost spat.

"It's important to me. It will help me. I need to know it wasn't me. That I wasn't the reason her left."

"But mom, I can't. That's personal. And you're my mom!"