Thirty-Six Exposures

"Let's change the subject, okay."

"Can you imagine some boy in Florence looking up one day at The Birth of Venus and seeing his mom up there on the canvas? That Botticelli, man. ...I found that painting in the encyclopedia at the library when I was like six and I ripped it out and took it home with me."

Mom turned and smiled at me, as if against her will. "...Vandal."

"I got a thirst for art, what can I say."

"Then go to the Met," she said, playful now, waving me out of the room.

I went upstairs and changed, deciding to take a run before it got to hot out, disappointed that I hadn't gotten her to talk more. I'd be cagey about it though, determined to be patient with this, to play it out right.

"Here," came my mom's voice as I went past my parent's bedroom. The second stack of prints in her hand. I snatched them so fast that she flinched.

"Thank you?" she chided playfully.

"Thanks!"

"Please, just make sure daddy never sees them. ...You're actually going to look at them?" she said, blushing now.

"Sure I am," I stammered excitedly. "...Thanks. Thank you so much."

"You're just going to look at them, right?"

I didn't even try for an answer—and then I did it, I looked at one of them right there while she stood watching me, then the next. I glanced up and smiled. "...Thanks," I repeated for the umpteenth time and went back to my room, dropping the pictures on my bed and turning to go out and finish my walk, letting the door open more than a crack—carefully gauged the gap.

When I got home, sweaty, keyed up, my run fucked by having better than half a hard-on for most every stride I made, the door was off, closed a little tighter than I'd left it. She'd been in here. She'd seen her pictures strewn atop my sheets. She knew exactly what I was going to be doing in here with them, which, stripping off my perspiration soaked tee shirt and shorts, I proceeded to do with added vigor.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Do you have any appointments today?" I asked. I'd already spied through my Mom's scheduling book for the week. It had been a little less than a week since she'd surrendered her pictures to me and neither of us had spoken about any of it since.

"No."

"Want to hike up the tubs with me?"

"You have work," she said glancing up from her checkbook.

"I'll call off. I haven't missed a day yet."

"...It is nice out."

"We can do the whole loop, up through the bolder field. Then have lunch down by small waterfall."

"Buy sandwiches at Cellastino's?"

"Hot peppers and provolone."

"...Okay, call up and see if you can get it off."

"I'm feeling pretty sick," I said, feigning a cough.

"Ask for the day off. Don't leave Mike in a lurch."

"Get changed," I said happily as I snatched up my cell phone.

The tubs were a string of huge potholes supposedly gnashed out of the earth by a glacier. Now a sparkling creek ran through them, cascading down through a series of higher and higher waterfalls, a trail maintained by private hiking groups. I'd been hiking it since I was a kid, my Mom often taking me up there, always angling off through the dark woods to a small isolated waterfall bounded by a deep pond of icily clear water.

She'd taught me how to swim there when I was five, the water so cold that I remember her lips turning blue.

It was a great place to be alone, to just sit and feel the stillness—to talk with someone, to say things that you couldn't say.

We hiked for just over two hours, a hard climb up over a prehistoric bolder field, Mom in a pair of green cargo shorts and tall leather hiking boots, the outline of a sports-bra underneath her plain white tee.

We ate our lunch there by the base of that waterfall, her eyes rolling when I pulled the bottle of pinot noir out of my pack. A corkscrew—"see mom, just like the boy scouts."

"That wine is very good," she whispered after we'd finished, lips stained red, a bit tipsy maybe.

"It was." I'd had only a plastic tumbler of it.

"You're only twenty. That probably makes me a corruptor of minors."

"Hey, I brought the wine, not you."

"True, but...but I guess I've already corrupted you, huh?"

I chuckled, gave her a shrug.

"What do you do with them?"

"...Look at them. You know, once in a while."

"What's once in a while?"

"Every goddamned day," I laughed.

"Don't swear, honey. ...And that is so mortifying."

I took my boots off and splashed my feet in the water.

"Do you do...do you do anything when you look at them?"

"...Yep."

"Yep, what?"

"You know," I answered, wanting to just scream out what I'd been doing and what I'd been thinking.

"So totally mortifying," she shot back, laying back on the rock where she sat and draping a hand across her eyes. "...Doesn't it bother you looking at your mother like that?"

"How old were you in them?"

"...My senior year of high school. In the spring, my last semester."

"Who took them?"

"That isn't..."

"Come on, you can tell me. I know you can't tell dad."

"...His name was Eric."

"He was your boyfriend?"

"He was...never mind, let's not talk about this, okay?"

I sat there in silence for a long while, kicking water with my tired feet, Mom just vacantly staring up through the canopy of leaves.

"He was my teacher," came her voice finally, a distant echoed tone. "He taught English, but he ran the photography club too."

I looked over at her, another shocker of shockers from her. I have to admit that it really turned me on, the exact Freudian babble as to why it did an unanswered question to this day. I just let her words hang there, knowing that the silence would let her speak.

"I was seventeen when I signed up for the club, and he was...God he was handsome. He was only thirty-six years old, but to me that seemed so old. He joked with me, always complimented me with the photos I took...'you have some real talent' he'd say. Always nice to me, talking about things, but never creepy like you'd imagine an older guy talking to a young girl would be. ...God, I had such a huge crush on him."

She sighed and closed her eyes, rays of sun cutting down to her reclined figure.

"Then I turned eighteen...I was so inexperienced, so naïve." She opened her eyes and looked over at me, meeting my gaze. "...I was a virgin. I wanted to save myself for marriage...I mean I was really into it. I never did anything with the boys I'd date, though they tried hard enough. ...I never even let them touch my breasts. ...I'm sorry. I can't believe I'm telling you this."

"It's okay," I whispered.

"I never told anybody about it with him. ...I was just so shy."

Again I let the silence leech after her words, for some reason finding delight in the fact that she'd been a virgin like that.

"He kissed me in the darkroom one day after everyone else was gone. Just a soft kiss, so soft, and I didn't even close my eyes. ...It was so wonderful.

"A week or so later we were there alone again and I...I went up to him and just stood there waiting. He didn't say a word, just came up and kissed me again, harder this time...I felt his tongue in my mouth and his hands were touching me. He looked at me and cupped my breast, just outside the blouse, really tender. He asked me if I had ever done anything...that's how he phrased it, 'done anything' and I shook my head. ...Does it bother you to hear this?"

I shook my head, never breaking our gaze. She smiled hesitantly.

"I stepped back from him and I unbuttoned my blouse for him. I remember the brassiere I was wearing snapped at the front and I...I unsnapped it and held it out for him. He had very rough hands and I can still remember how they felt on me."

"So, did he..."

"He kissed me again. He kissed down to my breasts...we there in that darkroom and it was just the red light on. He kissed down my stomach and knelt and lifted my skirt...it was...he lifted it and he slowly pulled my panties all the way down, lifting my feet to slip them off. They were pink striped and had a little red bow embroidered on the front, I can still remember that. Then he...you know..."

"What?"

"He...he kissed me down there. I was standing there, leaning back against the counter with all the developing trays and the sheets of film hanging down from the wires. He...I'd never had one before that. I mean never. He...it was so fabulous, my legs just collapsed and he was holding all my weight and he just kept doing what he was doing and I had to put a hand over my mouth so I wouldn't..."

I watched her laying back on that flat rock, lost in the memory, her voice fading and far away, a smile that made her look so many years younger.

"Everything looked so new when I walked home that day. The next day he asked if I could get over to his apartment that weekend. I took a bus there Saturday afternoon. I was so scared, so worried someone would find out or see me going there.

"And?"

"He just took me into his bedroom and undressed me without a word, took off everything and I was standing there naked and he took off his clothes. ...I'd never seen one before, and I actually got scared with how big it looked. ...I shouldn't be telling you this."

"I wanna hear."

"You're not supposed to think of your mom like this."

"Tell me, please."

"He made love to me, he told me a lot of what to do. I had to put the rubber...the condom on him and you know, unroll it down him. And...I loved when he put all his weight down on me, I was just like mashed under him and it hurt so bad that first time, probably 'cause I was so scared. ...After he came he showed me it, all his stuff under the rubber and I was just squishing it around like it was silly putty. I came when he did it to me again a little while later and I now I could be loud. God was I loud."

"And that's what you did with him."

"I did everything with him," she mused, as if to herself, a sated aspect in her voice, as if she were still that girl curled up next to her older lover.

"Can I take your picture?" I asked.

"Shoot away, kiddo."

"Not like that."

"Like..."

"Just here with the water."

She rolled on to her side and gave me a blurry look.

"...Like he did." I went on.

"Like..."

I stood up and slipped the Sony digital camera from my belt, the zippy buzz as I pressed the power button and the lens adjusted.

"Come on, trust me."

She sat up slowly, blinking herself out of the fog. "You're my son, and there's no way..."

"Trust me. Let me do this for you."

"We should go back, it's getting late."

I snapped a picture of her sitting there, then another.

"If I ever did it you'd probably feint."

"...Try me."

"I should, I should, get you to break off this..."

I snapped another picture.

Her expression changed and she glanced around nervously. "Somebody could walk past."

"We've never seen anybody down here, ever, and not on a weekday."

I snapped another shot.

"Wait," she blurted, agitated now, her palm jacked out at me.

"You are so beautiful."

"Yeah, right," she muttered, looking around again and then turning her back to me. "...I don't believe I'm even considering this."

I clicked a photo.

"Big mistake," she muttered and quickly lifted her tee shirt up over her head, dropping it on the rock, squatting to undo her boots, peeling down the tall gray hiking socks, undoing her baggy shorts, slipping them down and stepping out of them. Another glance around, apprehensive, breathing hard as she stood there in her white panties and Nike sports bra, a sidelong glance back over her left shoulder.

She lifted the bra over her head and dropped it, a moment's hesitation before she peeled the panties down her legs. Bared, her back to me—a soft whirl as I took a picture.

"Don't take one like that. Not with my big butt."

Her body was definitely older, a bit of crepe high on her thighs, still with a long lovely back.

"You have a great ass, Mom. Turn around for me?"

She pirouetted about, her arms lifting outward. I bit my lip, felt the camera flutter in my grip. A bit of roundness to her belly, her breasts heavier and still firm, slung probably an inch or so lower, the nipples dark and more pronounced. Her pubic thatch was thick, the silver gray unsettling to me even though it was a spot on match for the drapes.

"The quiet ravages of age," she said in a quavering tone.

"I think you're gorgeous. You are."

I snapped through a fast row of pictures as she nervously shifted from foot to foot. "Go over by the water."

She looked about again and then stepped towards the waterfall. "There," I said, clicking off half a dozen shots, zooming in closer, framing her as she stretched her hands into the water.

"You know that I'm enjoying this, don't you," she whispered.

"Turn to the side...just a little, just like that," I said, coming closer, placing my feet carefully as I lined up a profile pose. "...Here," I said, and I reached in and touched her shoulder, a flinch as I angled her for a better view.

"We'd been lovers for only a month or so when he got me to pose for those stupid photos," she whispered distantly, cupping water in her palm and absently spilling it down over her tits. "...How's that?"

"Great," I said in a strained tone, actually light in my head with the lust rising at the sight.

"I was so afraid of someone ever seeing them that I made him use my camera and then when he was done I wouldn't give him the film. He was so mad."

"What he'd do?"

"He called me a stupid little prude. He stopped... he made me beg for it...just pulled back a little bit and I was so..."

There was a flash of anger in her eyes, her cheeks mottled with color. I shot a close up of her face like that, clicked another one her eyes so hard for a second that I had to look away.

"After a couple days of him being all cold with me, I went into the dark room with him and I undid my blouse and my bra and I knelt down and I...I unbuckled his belt and pulled his pants down and..."

Her face was fiery now, voice quivering with an unearthed resentment.

"...I sucked his cock, right there, right down on my knees. Let him cum in my mouth and...I opened my mouth and I showed it to him on my tongue and...I swallowed it, swallowed it all. Then I just put my clothes back on without saying a word and I left. I did that every day after class for two weeks straight...but I never gave him his damn pictures."

"Christ."

"Now you definitely think I'm a slut, right?"

"No."

"Back then girls didn't do that, weren't supposed to do it. Not good girls anyway. You suck on a man's thing and you were...he used to tell me 'get to work, Annie'. Just like that, me down on my knees for him. Get to work and swallow his fucking sperm for him."

"Are you okay?" I asked, seeing the anger suddenly drain away like rain off glass.

"...I'm sorry I spoke like that in front of you, I really am."

I reached out and touched her inner thigh, a caress along the back of her knee.

"Don't do that," she whispered, but didn't step away.

I slid my hand up along the back of her leg, a featherlike touch, gooseflesh rising on her skin.

"Please don't..."

My mother shivered—I leaned forward and kissed her just above the knee, an inch or so higher, another soft kiss, my fingertips brushing across the smoothness of her ass, my thumb tracing out the deep cleft there. I kissed higher, dropped my weight onto one knee, palm wide on backside as I brushed my mouth through the coarse tangle of gray pubic hair.

"Please, baby..." she whispered, shaking her head, her eyes brimming a bit as if she were going to start weeping. "...we can't, we..."

I dipped my head and softly kissed her vulva, the thick folds of labial flesh reddish pink, bright beads of moisture standing out like dew in the curly coils hair. I swiped my tongue into her turgid crevice, tasting the salt, she was absolutely slick now. I licked deeper, my mom stiffened, a single deep gasp as she rose up almost on her toes. I found her clitoris, flicked the bud one time, her hands grasping my head but not pushing me away. I trolled my tongue deeper, the entire length of her slit, twirling it into her, flicking her clit again, fast, pressing onto it.

Mom throttled down on my head, another ragged gasp, a wheezing cry breaking off her lips as she came, that fast, I licked faster, circling it, sucking it, she smothered my face into her crotch, manic as she hit another orgasm, a moaning shriek, her throat puffing as she gritted her teeth through another, nails plowing into my scalp, I sucked on it, side to side on it with the tip of my tongue, she tried to push me off, but I had my hands anchored into the softness of her ass cheeks, wrestling her hips onto me as we scrunched against the cold rock wall. Sucking it—sucking it.

She stiffened out bodily, convulsing through that final climax like a clubbed fish, a low rushing sound from deep within her vagina as her legs wrapped into my ribcage till I couldn't breathe.

"Ma," I whispered a few minutes later, looking around at the empty glade, the sound of birds in the trees and the drum of the water soft after the frenzied riot of her orgasms.

She was weeping quietly—hiding her face from me, balled up as if in shock or shame.

"Hey," I went on, touching her calf. She pulled away as if touched by fire.

"Oh my god, what have I..."

"Mom..."

"Oh god, oh my god..." She was standing, covering her breasts, her crotch as best she could, staggering back to the pile of clothes. Pulling the shorts and shirt on, stuffing the bra and panties and socks into her small day sack.

"It's okay," I muttered stupidly.

She struggled with the boots, not lacing them, a glance back at me through tear swollen eyes as she started to walk back to the car. I picked up my camera and stepped down from the rocks, putting my own boots back on, an effort to get my wet feet into them, starting to run after her, seeing her move through the trees like a shadow, keeping pace with her till she got to the car, slamming the passenger door.

I expected to hear her crying when I opened my door, but instead found her staring blankly at the dash.

"Don't say anything, okay?" she asked hollowly.

I sat there and didn't say a word.

"...Just please drive us home."

She didn't say a word on the long drive back, her body pressed to the door as if wanting to hold a certain distance from me. I sat behind the wheel while she gathered her things and went up the stairs to the empty house. I waited a long while before I pulled the car into the garage and went inside, up the stairs, agitated, wanting to talk to her, to—

"Baby, you stay up in your room tonight, okay?" she said softly from inside her darkening bedroom.

"Mom..."

"Just do that for me please, okay? Your father's going to be home in another hour and I can't have you down there with us tonight."

"You're not going to tell him?" I fairly yelped in dread.

"Of course I'm not!" she shot back—I could make out her silhouette sitting on the edge of her bed, arms hugged about her waist, rocking slightly, back and forth, back and forth. "...It's just that I know how to lie...I'm just not too sure about you."

"I can..."

"You stay up here. You're sick, stomach thing probably. You missed work today and all. Understood?"

"...Yeah."

"Go get yourself a sandwich or something and a coke. Just don't come down at all. If he peeks in on you moan and groan about feeling like hell."

"Okay."

"I love you, you know that don't you. Love you more than anything or anyone."

"I love you too."

"Go get your sandwich, baby. I'll take care of everything."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"How'd you sleep?"

I lifted my head off the pillow, my brain fogged. Mom was seated at my desk, a cup of coffee in her hand—a glance at the clock. Six a.m.

"Dad gone to work?"