Folie a Deux, Episode 03

"Did you think that would work?" asks the interviewer.

"Yeah, sure. I mean...well, yeah. I hoped it would. Sure."

"But the physical connection you and your mother shared --"

"Wasn't like anything I'd ever had with anyone," Mike finishes for her. "Yeah. But I was 18, it wasn't like I had all the experience in the world. Just because I'd never had sex as good as I had with my mom didn't mean the next person I was with wouldn't be better, right? So, like, get out there and hang around with a girl I like and maybe things happen and maybe it makes forgetting what mom and I did easier."

"When he mentioned Miss Williamson, I knew that we had really solved nothing with our discussion," Emily tells the camera with a level stare. "I immediately felt a harsh stab of jealousy that was wholly unmotherly. For an instant I felt as though a lover was flaunting his infidelity to me, and I felt all the horrible things one feels in that situation."

"Such as?" prompts the interviewer.

"Anger. Disgust. Rejection," Emily says. "Followed immediately by two fully-formed and mutually contradictory ideas: the first, that I deserved better of Mike, that I deserved...fidelity, and the second, that I was a truly horrible person for feeling jealous or possessive at all."

"Mike had dated before?"

"Oh my, of course!" Emily laughs. "As you know, he's a very attractive young man. He never had problems attracting feminine attention!"

"And had you ever been jealous or possessive before with him?"

"No," Emily replies with a shake of her head. "Certainly not in that manner. I had of course experienced typical parental anxiety when my oldest child began to date, and with it the attendant feelings of impending old age, but this was a very different set of emotions. This was a lover scorning me -- that was what it felt like, I should say. It felt bitter and immediate and almost deliberately cruel."

"What did you do?"

"I instantly recognized those emotions as being...improper," she replies judiciously. "We had so recently finished a talk about putting all our actions behind us, and yet I was experiencing jealousy as though I were his wronged girlfriend instead of his mother. I felt dreadful for feeling those things, but I found that I couldn't put them from my mind. Not wholly. And that bothered me tremendously."

"And you told him that?"

"Of course not!" Emily says. "I told him I hoped he had a wonderful day."

"There was this...hesitation in mom's reaction," Mike says, "and this little flash in her eyes, this kind of...well, like she always had when I did something wrong and was trying to get away with it. It was this 'I know what you're up to and you're busted' look. But it was there and gone like that," and here he snaps his fingers, "so I wasn't even sure I saw it. I mean...no, I was sure I saw it. But I decided to ignore it. I had to ignore it. If we were gonna get back to normal, I had to ignore it. I called Hannah and asked her if she wanted to get together, and she was like, 'Hell yeah!'"

Another picture of Hannah appears with the legend Hannah Williamson declined invitations to appear in this documentary.

"We went to lunch that day," Mike continues in voiceover. "We went to Sebastian Joe's and got burgers and milkshakes and then walked around Lake Harriet. It started raining buckets and we ended up running and taking shelter in the Bandshell. That was where I kissed her for the first time as it poured outside -- just like out of a romance movie."

"How did that feel to you?"

"I like kissing."

"I mean, did it feel right kissing another girl after what you and your mother had done?"

"It felt...like I needed to," Mike says slowly. "I mean it was a nice kiss. Fine."

"That sounds underwhelming."

He shrugs. "When I kissed mom, steam shot out of my ears and my socks rolled up and down. When I kissed Hannah it was a nice kiss with a nice girl."

"Were you disappointed?"

He pauses to consider, then shakes his head. "No, I didn't let myself get disappointed. I needed to do it so I did it, and then I did it again and again until some guy told us to knock it the hell off."

"I avoided thinking about what Mike and Miss Williamson were doing," Emily says. "I prepared everything for dinner that night and then went to practice for several hours at the University. Of course faculty can use the facilities there for free, which saved money renting a studio space."

"And you weren't jealous?" the interviewer asks.

"No I wasn't." She pauses pregnantly, then adds, "For the most part."

"For the most part?"

She shakes her head dismissively. "Oh, minor thoughts crept in from time to time. If I had ever met Miss Williamson I didn't recall her, so I didn't know what she looked like. My mind filled in the blanks in a specific fashion."

"Which was?"

Emily begins to look irritated at this line of questioning. "I believe I imagined her as an Amazonian brunette with perfect hair and very large breasts. It hardly matters."

Mike looks amused as he reappears on camera. "Mom's always been self-conscious about her hair. From time to time she'd tried to straighten it or, like, perm it, I don't know what women do with their hair, but she did it, and it never worked out. It always just looked weird until it grew back out. And of course she's always been worried about her boobs, because they're small. I love 'em, but she's always wanted them to be bigger."

Olivia appears again. "I remember dinner that night being the first actually relaxed meal we had since we got back from the wedding. Mike and mom were relaxed and happy and goofing around, and of course I assumed that was due to my brilliant words of wisdom. Dad was delighted that they were back to normal, but once or twice I caught mom looking at Mike funny."

"Funny how?" the interviewer asks.

"Like...when two friends of yours had sex and they're pretending like they didn't only one of them can't quite pull it off," Olivia says. "Just that little possessive glance."

"You knew they'd had sex?" the interviewer asks, plainly surprised.

"No! I mean, God no, of course not! But there was that little bit of tension still there and that's what it felt like. A lot of it was from mom's side, which makes sense because she's the worst liar ever born. But some of it came from Mike too, like he'd be looking at her when she moved around the room or whatever."

"What did you make of it?"

Olivia smiles. "That maybe part of what they'd argued about was that Mike was doing something with some girl mom didn't like. Or hell, maybe he knocked somebody up. My friends were always fawning over him."

"You knew it was something sexual, though?"

"I didn't know," Olivia admits, "but it sure seemed like it. And dad was completely oblivious, of course. He didn't pick up on any of this for the longest time, not until it hit him right in the face."

In white letters against a black background, we see:

June 29 - July 2

"Things got hot fast between me and Hannah," Mike tells us. "There had always been interest there, and now that we had the chance it just kind of blew up into the classic whirlwind summer romance."

"You had sex?" the interviewer asks.

"Yeah, after the second date, in the back seat of my car," he says.

"How was it?"

"Good. I mean...yeah, it was good. I know what you're asking, and no it wasn't as good as what I'd had with mom, but it was good. It was good sex."

"I knew when I saw Mike the day after he and Miss Williamson...became carnally involved," Emily says, her distaste very obvious. "It was wholly apparent. Her stink was practically coming off of him in waves. It was disgusting."

"The day after Hannah and I did it, mom was staring me daggers," Mike says. "Serious 'If looks could kill' stuff. She could tell what I did with Hannah. I don't know how, but she was letting me know she knew."

"I handled it perfectly rationally," Emily says primly. "He was an adult and of course I had no romantic claim on him. If he wanted to flounce about with a trollop it was no concern of mine."

"Mom was like glaring at Mike that morning," Olivia says. "I mean it was really...angry. I figured she'd gotten a call from some girl's dad or something about something he did."

"I just ate and got out of there," Mike shrugs. "I had a long day at work lined up and I didn't want to fight with mom again...not the way our last fight ended."

"Were you thinking about Mike?" the interviewer asks Emily.

"I presume you mean sexually?" Emily asks.

"Yes."

"I...was, yes. By the second or third day he'd been seeing Miss Williamson, I found myself wondering what they did together. I knew they were having sex, but I wondered precisely what they did...what he did to her, what she did to him, whether it was good...whether it was better than it was with me. Whether..." She pauses and blushes. "Well, I assume you grasp the general content of my thoughts."

"And was the guilt still present?"

"It...was, yes. Of course it was."

"But...?"

Emily blushes a little deeper. "But it was lessening, and it wasn't keeping me from thinking inappropriate thoughts."

"Such as?"

Emily blushes a little deeper still, frowns, and shifts uncomfortably. "Thoughts about what had happened between Mike and me. Detailed thoughts. At length. When I was alone or...or when I had worked up a sweat dancing. Then especially. I would feel the sweat on my body and think about the sweat we had made together and...well."

"Did you have these thoughts often?"

"I shouldn't say I had them often," Emily says immediately, and after a moment clarifies, "Not constantly. I was able to get work done, teach lessons, practice for the show I was in, function as an adult human being. I wasn't incapacitated by thoughts about him."

"Did you do anything about those thoughts?"

"No. No, not then. Not for a few days."

"Right away I started noticing she was acting different," Mike says when we see him again.

"In what way?" the interviewer asks.

"She was showing off for me. Not showing off. I mean, she was...well, she was kind of posing."

"Posing?"

"Yeah, from my first date with Hannah. When she was alone with me or when nobody else could see her but me, she'd kind of strike a pose. Like she'd bend over and give me a long look at her ass, or she'd cross her legs. She always wore shorts in the summer so she had a hell of a lot of leg to cross, and she was making sure I was looking."

"I was not behaving any differently then than I did at any other point," Emily says demurely but adamantly. "I felt things I knew I ought not to have been feeling, but I would certainly not have flaunted myself to my son when I was attempting to control myself. I have always worn tight shorts in summer and I certainly was wearing them then as well, but in exactly the same way I was wearing my customary loose tee shirts and baggy tops. In other words, I was wearing precisely what I had always worn and acting in precisely the way I had always acted. If Mike was noticing me more, then that was because of what we had done and what he wanted to do again, rather than anything I was doing."

Mike is seen looking pensive. "I...guess it's possible I was noticing her more, sure. I mean, yeah, of course I was, right? She's gorgeous and I lived with her, and now she was a sexual being to me. But there's no way that's all it was. Usually when she got like a pan or something out of a lower cupboard she'd crouch down to get it, but now she was standing with her legs straight and her ankles together and bending over so her ass was sticking out right there, and her ass is amazing. And she never did that before. And she'd cross her legs and sort of dangle her shoe off her foot and then run her hands down her legs."

"I never did that," Emily insists as she reappears on screen.

"Which part?" the interviewer asks. "Bending over, or the thing with crossing your legs?"

"Well both of --" She stops, reconsiders, and then says, "Crossing my legs in that manner. I may have bent over provocatively on...several occasions when Mike was in the room during the next two or three days. I may have."

"So, like, I was trying to spend as much time as possible away from the house, right?" Mike says. "Because she kept doing that over the next couple days, and when she did, I thought about what we'd done, and I didn't want to think about that, and once I'd start thinking about it it was hard to stop. So I just tried to avoid her."

"What did you do?" the interviewer asks.

"I hung out with friends, I worked out, I worked a lot, I spent a lot of time with Hannah. A lot of time with Hannah. By July 2nd, basically I only went home to sleep."

Again we see white letters against a black background:

July 3

"I recall very clearly that it was the third of July," Emily says, "because I was making preparations for the family to attend the annual gathering the chair of the department holds every year for the Fourth of July holiday. This was something the family had always enjoyed, since my coworkers and their significant others were artistic, bohemian, expressive sorts who tended toward...interesting behavior. And of course the department chair had a lovely house on the shore of Lake Minnetonka and always provided excellent food. It was always an enjoyable experience.

"That day, I had a practice for my show in the afternoon but nothing in the morning, so I decided to catch up on housework. Mike's bedroom door was open and I thought he had gone for the day -- I hadn't seen very much of him over the past few days so I wasn't aware of his schedule. I approached the door and I heard him talking on the telephone, and it was apparent by his tone that he was talking to Miss Williamson."

"You sound as though that bothered you," the interviewer observes.

"Of course not," Emily says too quickly. "Why ought it have? He was free to do as he wished with anyone he chose."

"I was talking with Hannah about what we were gonna do that day," Mike tells us. "Her whole family was gone for the day, but she stayed around because she had to work that morning. I had to work too, but I was going to be off by mid-afternoon, so I was going over there and we were gonna get crazy all afternoon and evening."

"He was talking loudly enough that I could overhear it from the hallway," Emily says, a flush creeping up her cheeks, "and he was describing what he intended to do to Miss Williamson that day. The terms he was using were...vulgar and...descriptive. I'm sure that if he knew I was there he would have moderated his tone, or at least his volume, but as it was he was very florid in his terms."

"I knew she was there," Mike says with a grin as we see him again. "Of course I knew. I heard her coming down the hallway. She was standing right by the open doorway -- I could see her shadow on the door from the hall light. I heard her gasp when I told Hannah I was going to bend her over the kitchen table and fuck her from behind."

"Did you consider talking more quietly, or toning down your language?" the interviewer asks.

Mike laughs. "I wasn't even talking that dirty before she started listening in. I figured, fuck it, she wants to eavesdrop, I'll give her something to eavesdrop on, right?"

"His filthy language, and the obvious relish with which he was using it, was incredibly uncouth," Emily sniffs, her nostrils flaring and her flush creeping a bit higher, "but it had an effect on me."

"An effect?" the interviewer asks.

"Yes. It was..arousing," she explains, getting redder. "Also, it made me rather angry."

"Because of the vulgarity?"

"Nnnnnooooo," Emily says slowly. "Because it was being directed toward Miss Williamson."

"Instead of...you?"

In a long closeup in which she turns bright red, Emily makes no reply.

"So I got into it pretty good," Mike says with a smile. "I told Hannah that I wanted to watch her down on her knees with my cock in her mouth and look in her eyes as she swallowed it. I told her I wanted to put her on her back on her mother's bed, spread her legs, and use my mouth on her until she screamed. I told her I wanted her to wrap her legs around my waist and squeeze my cock with her pussy as I fucked her brains out. She was getting really hot on the other end of the line too, because I'd never talked to her like that before, so she wanted me to get the hell over there and actually do what I was promising."

"Were you getting excited too?" asks the interviewer.

"Well yeah, of course!" Mike laughs. "I mean I was talking filthy to my girlfriend and my mom was listening in, and both of them were getting worked up by it. I'm not made of stone."

"You knew that your mother was getting excited?"

"She was panting. She's not quiet when she gets worked up -- she can't be, she doesn't know how. When I told Hannah that I was gonna make her beg me for my cum, I heard mom gasp like she does when I took her nipple into my mouth. The way her shadow was moving, I think she was touching herself."

Emily is now the color of a ripe strawberry. "I found it thrilling. Shamefully thrilling. I shifted the basket to my left hand and..."

"And?'

"And touched my breast," she continues, barely audible. "My nipple. Through my shirt. And then...I put my hand between my legs."

"Thinking about Mike doing those things with Hannah?"

Emily fidgets for a bit, then whispers, "Thinking about him doing those things to me."

"I heard this whimper, this kind of moan," Mike tells us. "It sounded like mom was getting hot. And frustrated. I thought that was hilarious, getting her wound up when she was the one trying to listen in."

"And you were alright with that?" the interviewer asks.

"At first, yeah. I thought it was funny. Kind of hot, right? But harmless, like getting her all worked up. She'd been trying to get me worked up, so this was payback. But then I started thinking, like, God, she sounds so hot that she might come in and try to do something about it. And I didn't want that!"

"Didn't you?" the interviewer asks.

"No! Of course not!" Mike tells us, not wholly convincingly. "It was one thing to get her wound up, but I didn't want to do anything more with her. I mean, she'd been making me look at her, right? So this was just throwing it back at her. But we couldn't cross that line again. So I changed the subject and started talking about when she'd be home, when I'd be off work, that kinda stuff, and headed for the door. By the time I got there, mom was gone and her bedroom door was closed."

"The moment I heard Mike heading for the door, I ran back to my bedroom," Emily says, the camera in tight closeup. "I couldn't bear to see him then -- he would know what I was thinking! It would have been so humiliating!"

"Hadn't you been trying to tempt him though?" the interviewer asks. "Bending over in front of him, making him look --"

"Yes, but I -- I had been listening to him!" Emily interjects, so red that she looks as though she might burst. "I had been eavesdropping as he said those things and his words made me think things and..and touch myself! And he would know! I couldn't have borne that!"

"So what did you do?" asks the interviewer.

"I threw myself on my bed and clenched my legs together, trying to make the heat go away. I heard him go past my door, down the steps, and outside. I heard his car start and drive off. I tried to make the heat go away. I did."

After a closeup of Emily's red, uncomfortable face and a long silence, the interviewer asks, "But?"

"But it didn't go away. In the silence I could hear his voice, hear his words, and I began to remember what we'd done. How he'd touched me. How he felt when I touched him. The way he felt inside me." Her breathing is becoming shallower and more rapid, her eyes getting wider. "The heat became a flame. I couldn't control myself. I...touched myself. Over my clothes at first, but before very long I was nude. I don't even remember taking off my clothes, but I did. The moment I touched my pussy, I came. I came very hard."