Charlie's Discovery

Disclaimer: All characters in my stories are 18 years of age or older. Within my stories there are sometimes interactions between family members that will border, if not cross over into, the taboo category.

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Whilst I'm not setting out to write a story with this as the main focus, I want to give a warning to anyone who may be offended/upset by that. If that's the case, you may want to give these stories a miss.

Charlotte O'Neil had never known her father, having grown up for most of her life with just her mother. Around the time that she was finishing high school, Charlie (as she always went by) was introduced to her mother's boyfriend Liam.

From day one, Charlie had been happy with the new addition to their family. She could see how happy and relaxed he made her mother, and he had always treated her like an equal, not trying to step into the role of a father, a role that she neither felt that she needed or wanted.

He was the perfect counterbalance to her mother in so many ways. Charlotte's mother Susanne was not someone that people would describe as relaxed. Having had Charlotte in her early twenties, she had grown up fast, and her tough no-nonsense exterior was the only impression that most people had of her.

But around Liam she would transform. Her calm, caring, laughing and laid-back self was able to come to the surface. Of course, most of her friends and colleagues never got to see this. Susanne had climbed to corporate ladder to the executive level and would often lecture her daughter on the importance of thick-skin, cold rationality and aggressive ambition in the workplace.

In a couple of short years Susanne and Liam were married and the new family was living together in his suburban home. With the benefit of Susanne's sizable income from her latest promotion, they made plans to sell the house and upsize, moving to out further from the city towards lakes once Charlie finished her gap-year and started university.

Now having just turned 20, and close to the age that her mother was when she was born, Charlie had returned home. She had been accepted into the law program at the nearby university and still had two months to kill before the new semester started.

It wasn't long after her return that Susanne told her about her travel plans. Their company was opening a new office overseas and she would be away for at least the next month, if not longer. It would fall upon Charlie and Liam to manage all the unpacking at their newly purchased home on the lake.

Despite her disappointment at not having time to spend with her mother before staring university, Charlie had just returned from a year of travel, and her newfound sense independence and confidence made her a little relieved to have some time to herself. She had a new neighbourhood to explore and a stunning lake right on their doorstep. On top of this Liam had always respected her boundaries and privacy, so this felt like a happy compromise.

It was only a couple of days after Susanne had departed, that everything began to change for Charlie. She and Liam had been slowly working through the boxes from the old house, and most of the essentials had been taken care of. What remained were an assortment of cardboard boxes of various sizes, marker pen scribbles and packaging tape lining the sides.

Most of these had spent some time in deep storage, having not had the space for their contents in the old house. They had begun the slow and arduous work of unpacking and finding a new home for the varied contents. Whilst Charlie sorted her way through boxes of old books, sorting them in to keep and throw piles, Liam began unboxing the stack marked 'photos'.

Pulling out booklets and albums filled with old, assorted prints, he let out a weary sigh, looking around at the stacks of boxes in front of him.

"Hey...um, how about I head out and pick us up some lunch?" he said, turning to face Charlie. "You can keep going on these boxes if you want, then we can take a break when I get back?"

"Sounds good," Charlie replied, with a smile and shrug, turning her attention back to the dusty pile of books in front of her.

Liam fumbled around for a few minutes, finding his shoes and car keys amongst the various piles and boxes now littering the living room, before heading out to the front. Charlie waited for a moment, listening for the sound of his car exiting the driveway, before slowly raising to her feet and stretching out her legs.

Wanting to take a break from the endless, dusty piles of books she was dealing with, Charlie decided at least the photo boxes might have something interesting in them. Walking over to the box at the top of the pile, Charlie began sifting through the contents, opening paper folders of photos and flicking through them one-by-one.

Old holiday pictures, family gatherings, trips to the zoo, an assortment of photos from both she and Susanne's collections and also Liam's. It was only when she was returning the second folder to the box that she noticed the hard metallic container at the bottom, just visible underneath the stacks on top.

Carefully digging it out, Charlie saw that it was an old money tin, the kind that stall holders might use at a market. And the key for the tin was sitting firmly inside the lock, ready to be opened.

Charlie felt a moment of hesitation, feeling the weight of the sturdy container in her hands, but her curiosity won her over as she took it over to the nearby table, setting it down in front of her as she took a seat. Slowly turning the key and lifting the lid, the contents of the box were revealed.

Facedown in the box was an old model iPhone, along with a tightly wrapped charger and cord. Immediately Charlie knew that whatever was on this was not for her to see, but her curiosity had taken the wheel, and upon finding the battery in the phone dead, she set up the charger.

Nervously pacing the living room, Charlie alternated between checking the phone and peering out the living room window to see if Liam had returned. With their house situated right on the lake in a fairly private area of the neighbourhood, Charlie knew that Liam had at least a twenty-minute drive just to reach the nearest town and shops.

Finally, with a brief buzzing sound, the phone illuminated. Charlie dashed over to the table and picked up the phone, opening it to the home screen. There was no password, and an alert popped up indicating that there was no sim card in the phone.

Stealing a quick glance towards the window, Charlie began flicking through the apps. No messages and nothing in the call log. Charlie hesitated for a moment before pressing the photo album icon. The app sprung to life on the screen, hundreds of little photo windows laid out in a grid in front of her. Charlie could feel her heart rate starting to pick up as she opened the first photo, letting it fill the screen.

It showed her mother and Liam, along with two other men sitting around a table laughing. Susanne was sat between the two men, with Liam off to side, wine glasses and empty bottle laid across the table. Everyone had big grins on their faces, and her mother's face was clearly flushed from drinking.

Susanne was wearing a black dress with a sweeping neckline, her cleavage completely on show. Charlie had never seen her mother in a dress like this, it seemed strangely out of character for the usually modest and businesslike woman. With a sudden jolt, Charlie realised that she recognised both men.

She struggled to remember their names for a moment, and then it came to her. Andre and Patrick, Charlie recognised them from her infrequent visits to her mum's workplace. Both had been juniors at her firm. Charlie could clearly remember accidentally overhearing her mother yelling at them over some mistake they had made on one of her visits. She found it strange seeing them all sitting together like this, laughing and smiling.

She swiped to the next photo, still the same group of people, but now Patrick had his arm around Susanne's shoulders. Still smiling, she had a look of surprise on her face. Looking down, Charlie saw that Andre had his hand firmly clasped over Susanne's breast, squeezing slightly.

Charlie couldn't believe her mother would allow one of her subordinates to get away with something like that, but as she swiped through the next few photos it became very clear that Susanne was in no way discouraging him. Even more surprising was seeing Liam, laughing along with everyone, apparently unconcerned at the manhandling of his wife by her coworkers.

Charlie flipped through a few more photos, before coming to a sudden stop. She stared wide eyed at the picture that was now shining on the screen. Having previously been sitting behind a table, Charlie had not seen the full extent of Susanne's dress.

Along with having the steepest neckline Charlie had even seen her mother wear, the dress stopped just an inch below her bum, tightly clinging to her hips and leaving almost the entirety of her legs on show. She stood facing the camera, wearing a pair of heels that added at least six inches to her height. Tight black staps extended from the open toed shoes up past her ankles.

They looked like something that Charlie would have expected to see on strip club stage, and yet here was her professional mother balancing on them as she held a bottle of whiskey, grinning for the camera. Charlie's heart skipped a beat as she noticed the thin choker wrapped around Susanne's slender neck. The tight back strap was circled her throat, and on the front, in cheap looking plastic rhinestones was the name 'Susie'.

Charlie had always known that her mother hated this name. She would never allow anyone to shorten her name, insisting that it be said in full. She thought that nicknames were silly and patronising and would always refer to Charlotte by her full name. Yet here she was, smiling and laughing, dressed in a way Charlie had never seen, proudly displaying her hated nickname like a nametag on a pet's collar.

Charlie's heart was racing as she took in the photo, examining every detail, unable to comprehend what was happening in these pictures, nor why she was having such an unexpected physical reaction to them. She noticed her hand was trembling slightly as she thumbed across to the next picture.

Her jaw dropped slightly open as she stared down at the image before her. Front-and-centre was a man she recognised instantly. Barry Finnigan was a longtime coworker of her mother's. He had been a professional rival of her mother for as long as Charlie could remember. His name was almost a curse word in their household, and she had heard Susanne complaining about and insulting him many times around their dinner table.

From what Charlie understood, her mother's office was a bit of a boy's club, and she had needed to work herself to the bone to climb the ladder, whereas Barry had been able to climb up alongside her simply on account of his friendship with the higher-ups. Susanne's most recent promotion - the one that had afforded them their new home by lake - had come at the cost of Barry missing out, and Charlie had remembered how much this fact had delighted her mother.

There he sat, a leering grin on his face as he held out a hand with an empty glass. He was positioned facing the camera, his legs spread wide, still dressed in a suit a from work. He was a short, pudgy man with a receding hairline. Among the few details that Charlie could recall about him, she knew that he was divorced, and his children lived with their mother. She also knew he was short tempered and misogynistic.

Just about every detail about him seemed designed to repel a sensible woman, and there to his side, smiling submissively down at him, was her mother. She stood bent over slightly, holding out the whiskey bottle ready to top up his glass. Her chest hung forward and the fabric of her dress was parted almost to the point of revealing her breasts.

Charlie felt her mouth go dry. Her hands were trembling visibly now, strange and confused thoughts running through her head. What on earth had come over her mother? She despised this man, and yet here she was, waiting on him like some kind of...bimbo.

Charlie instantly felt a wave of regret. Not only for thinking of another woman like that, but her own mother. She had never stooped to that kind of shaming...but looking at the photo in front of her, she couldn't get the thought out of head. Everything about her mother's outfit seemed designed to ridicule her, to demean her...to transform her from the strong, confident, professional Susanne...into Susie.

Slowly, almost dreading what she would see, Charlie swiped across to the next photo.

Susanne was now sitting on Barry's lap, his right arm wrapped around her waist, his left held out holding a now full glass of whiskey. Susanne was holding the bottle up to her mouth, head tilted slightly back, taking a sip. Barry's eyes were locked firmly on her cleavage, still with the leering grin upon his face.

Charlie's heart was racing as she began moving through the photos, noticing they were taken closer together, almost creating a slow-moving video. Her mother lowered the bottle, smiled back at Barry, he pulls her closer, apparently whispering in her ear. The next photo shows her tilting her head back and laughing as Barry pulls her dress to the side, completely exposing one of her breasts.

Charlie felt her heart skip a beat. She stared transfixed at the photo, her mother's bare breast completely exposed to her hated colleague, not to mention the other onlookers at the party just out of frame. Her hands were shaking now, and she realised she hadn't taken a breath for nearly ten seconds.

Slowly inhaling, Charlie put down the phone and looked over to the window again. She picked it back up, trying to steady her shaking hands. She had just come to the shocking realisation that she was excited. Not by the pictures of her mother, but by the scenario.

Her mind was spinning with confusion. She told herself that she should be horrified, ashamed, embarrassed, even repulsed by what she was seeing. But the truth was, whether she was conscious of it or not, Charlie was imagining herself in that situation...and it thrilled her.

She knew that it wouldn't be long now until Liam returned, so she started to move through the pictures at a quicker pace. Heart racing and almost short of breath, Charlie flicked through the camera reel, watching as Barry slid the other side of Susanne's dress off her shoulder, seeing it slide down to her waist, leaving her now bare chested in front of the laughing group of men.

Charlie realised that she had never really seen her mother's body as an adult. Even at the beach, Susanne would wear a conservative one-piece suit and would cover up whenever not in the water. There were a few similarities between them, but they served mostly to highlight the differences.

Charlie had Susanne's red hair, though while Charlie's was bright and vibrant, her mother's hair was a darker, almost auburn shade. They both stood at a similar height, five foot eight, making them taller than most women they knew, and even some of the men. Charlie had always been fair skinned, and freckled easily in the sun, whereas her mother was able to tan, making Charlie look almost ghostly white when stood beside her. And whereas Charlie's breasts had never grown beyond a handful, her mother's chest dwarfed her in comparison.

Charlie sometimes resented the fact that despite being only twenty years old, her smaller breasts still showed the early signs of sagging, hanging just a little lower on her chest than she would have preferred. Looking at her mother's large, tanned chest, the sagging of her breasts much more pronounced, Charlie was surprised at how well her mother had kept herself in shape.

Perched precariously on Barry's lap, her stomach was bunched up, her small tummy rolls visible above the bundled fabric of her dress around her waist. She still looked toned, without being lean, and was curvy and incredibly womanly. It almost reminded Charlie of the old renaissance portraits she had seen in galleries.

Charlie was still coming to terms with the fact that Susanne had allowed Barry and her other colleagues to see her bare breasts like this, when she slid across to the next photo. Susanne was now standing in front of Barry with her back to the camera. He had his hands on her waist, gripping the fabric of her dress, looking up at her with a wide grin on his face.

The next few photos came in quick succession, clearly taken rapidly as Barry slowly moved the dress down Susanne's legs. As the fabric moved its way down, her nearly bare bum came into view. Her wide hips and slightly drooping bum cheeks were framed by the most impossibly tiny G-string that Charlie had ever seen. The waist band was no wider than a shoelace, and the strap at the back was so thin that the black material wasn't even visible between Susanne's large round cheeks.

Finally, the dress reached the floor, and the camera captured Susanne as she turned to face the crowd, lifting her arms up over her head, smiling broadly, whiskey bottle still in hand. Charlie's heart leapt into her throat as she took in the view before her.

Her mother, standing completely on display, dressed only in a collar, high heels and a small triangle of fabric over her crotch. And on the front of the G-string, spelled out in the same tacky rhinestones as her collar was the word 'SLUT'.

Charlie felt almost dizzy looking down at the photo. She couldn't imagine what had come over her mother to make her humiliate herself like this. To allow these men who were supposed to respect her, even fear her, see her in this position. Every day at work they'd be able to look at her walking around in her corporate attire and imagine her like this...Susie the slut.

The next photos showed her moving around through the crowd, topping up various glasses and posing with different men at the party. Charlotte was moving through the photos quickly now, wanting to see more, feeling like a strange sense of satisfaction or relief was just out of her reach.

These photos gave the impression that this was not the tiny gathering that she had previously imagined. Close to a dozen faces were seen alongside her mother, some that she recognised, some unfamiliar. Some of them would pose with an arm around Susanne, some with a hand on her bum, but in every photo, she was smiling and laughing, clearly enjoying every second.

After what felt like minutes of scrolling, Charlotte came to a stop. Eyes wide, mouth hanging open, she stared at the picture in front of her.

Susanne was back sitting on Barry's lap, but now she was sitting with her legs wide apart. Barry's right arm was supporting her back as she leant back laughing, his left hand was clasped firmly between her legs, and his face was buried directly onto her chest, mouth open and wrapped around her nipple.

Susanne had her eyes closed and mouth open, frozen in laughter. Her left arm was wrapped over Barry's shoulders, holding on for support, and her right arm was extended outwards...the tiny black G-string dangling from her fingers.

Charlie felt frozen to the spot as she stared down at the picture in front of her. Knowing that her mother was essentially stark naked, the only woman in a group of leering men, all of whom knew her personally and professionally. It was driving her crazy.

She realised with a surge of dreadful acceptance that she was jealous. Confused, certainly, but some hidden part of her had been rudely awakened, and her fascination and curiosity pushed her to keep going. Almost knowing, almost dreading what she was about to see, she swiped across to the next photo.

Barry's left hand had moved away from Susanne's crotch, now holding her leg under the knee, lifting it up and away from her. She had a look of mock surprise and shock on her face but made no effort to cover or hide herself.