The Bargain
Kael gazed at his mother as she sniffled back her tears, then slowly dragged his tongue along the corner of her eye.
This is driving me mad. Even her tears taste sweet.
By all rights, the sight of his mother in sorrow ought to have pained him. Yet knowing those tears had been drawn forth by him filled him with a strange, welcome thrill. And as if that were not enough, his lower body was growing stiff with an almost bewildering urgency.
"Ka… Kael…"
In his mind, everything that had brought them to this point was her fault alone. Still clinging to that rotten rope of hope, still calling out to her own flesh and blood with those luminous amber eyes—how could a soul so pure even exist upon this earth?
The Church is a pack of fools. The true Saintess is right here, and they seated some worthless bitch in the place of honor…
His mother possessed a purity and clarity of spirit that put even the most devout nuns to shame. Not even the Saintess who represented the entire Church could compare to the clean chastity of this woman.
Ah—but that was a flawed comparison from the start.
That woman was nothing more than a whore who spread her legs for the Hero day after day.
Kael stared into empty air for the briefest moment. Extending his senses, he found no presence nearby in the secluded woods. Beyond the great wall that enclosed this place lay the risk of wild beasts and monsters; no one but the warriors of Bayorn would ever reach this spot.
Not that it would matter if someone did.
Indeed, Kael truly did not care. Should anyone dare lay eyes upon his mother’s naked body, he need only pluck out their eyeballs and be done with it.
"Please… not outside…"
Even as she sniffled, her body rustled and squirmed in a way that was almost pitiful. The Viscountess, whose sense of chastity ran bone-deep, found the very idea of outdoor coupling utterly foreign and repellent.
…Hmm.
The son who had inherited his parents’ sharp mind began to consider how he might persuade his mother to spread her legs for him out here in the open.
No matter how superior a man he was, Kael was still a male, and the craving to be his mate’s first in something—anything—burned inside him.
Regrettably, he had not been the first to pierce her cunt. So he sought to satisfy that hunger elsewhere. He longed for every first of the woman named Darin—including this outdoor coupling he now intended—to be slowly overwritten by him alone.
And should such a chance present itself, he had no intention of letting it slip away.
His mother was surely seething at the thought that her own son had deceived her. If he forced outdoor sex upon her in that state, she might come to despise him outright, or at least feel a deep revulsion.
Lately she has begun to take my cock into her mouth of her own accord and savor it quite nicely…
He did not want to lose this hard-won opportunity for outdoor sex.
His mother would truly abhor it.
To find a compromise here…
"Mother."
"…?"
At her son’s call, the mother’s eyes rolled round and wide as she looked upon her own flesh and blood. She feared he was about to wield that silver tongue of his once more and carve open her heart.
Kael wished to comfort the mother who trembled with disappointment and sorrow toward her son. He liked it when she grieved because of him, yet he also liked it when she smiled. Of late she had done nothing but weep, and that left a faintly bitter taste; he hoped she might show him the latter expression instead.
He gently cupped the nape of Darin’s neck and claimed her lips once more.
"Mmph!"
Darin made a tearful face and tried to keep her mouth shut, yet when Kael softly traced her lips, it became difficult to keep refusing her son’s mercy. Had he been rough from the start, she might have held out longer.
She had only just learned her son’s habit: when he was being kind and she still refused him, he would turn on a dime.
The string of disasters she had endured in so short a time had burned the lesson into the girl’s mind. When he was being good to her, she had to open for him—whether it was the upper mouth or the lower one.
Her pale lips, locked against the beast’s, slowly parted. At once the woman’s soft tongue emerged shyly to greet the man.
Kael stirred the woman’s crimson flesh, forcing his saliva into her mouth and sucking her own saliva back into himself. Without realizing it, Darin too began to drink her son’s fluids with soft, wet sounds.
The beast released the lips he had been sucking so thoroughly and looked at his mother. The hand that had been stroking her waist now kneaded her buttocks.
After sweeping his gaze over his mother’s entire body, the son pulled her close and locked her in his arms. Then he led her beneath a secluded tree, sat with her, and made her spread her legs.
The woman’s face flushed crimson as she instinctively tensed her thighs and resisted. Even this, Kael did not force. He merely massaged the unyielding flesh of her thighs with gentle pressure.
"Mother, may your son make a proposal?"
"…?"
Darin found it strange that her son, mid-molestation, would suddenly attempt conversation. Yet the proposal he was about to offer was not something she could simply ignore.
"If you open your heart to me a little as a lover, I will treat you as a son in return."
"…What?"
"I mean that to the degree you treat me as a lover, I will treat you as a mother. We will divide the time as honestly as possible—half and half."
Darin could not grasp what Kael was saying; she only blinked. Treat him as a lover and he would become a son? What nonsense was that? From those words alone, she could not understand precisely.
Watching his mother’s blank expression, Kael let out a soft laugh. He would have to explain once more. When he was a child and failed to understand something, his mother had explained it to him again and again; this much was nothing he could not do for her.
"During the time we maintain the parent-and-child relationship, only the ‘mother-and-son’ bond will hold. During the time we maintain the man-and-woman relationship, only the ‘lovers’ bond will hold."
Darin turned her son’s words over carefully, piecing together his intent. And being quick of mind, she understood it swiftly.
The two of them were each nursing a one-sided love. Darin loved Kael as her son; Kael loved Darin as a woman.
—Kael was offering the advantages that would come if she accepted a lovers’ relationship.
—She, in turn, was to offer the advantages that would come if he accepted a mother-and-son relationship.
And in each allotted span of time, only one relationship would be allowed to exist; the other party must accept it without protest.
A contest of who could more thoroughly impress their own position upon the other, who could make the other fall for them.
There is no reason to refuse.
From Darin’s position, that was truly the case. Powerless as she was, if her son chose to force the issue, she would have to maintain a ‘lovers’ relationship’ all day long anyway.
Yet now half of that time could be spent as mother and son? Darin’s entire purpose was to persuade Kael somehow and restore their relationship to what it had been; she had no cause to decline.
The only price her son demanded of her was one thing.
The attitude of an obedient woman.
Do not push him away.
…If all I have to do is offer my body, it is nothing I cannot manage.
She need only spread her legs and take her son into her. No matter how many times their bodies joined, her heart would never stir for Kael, her own flesh and blood.
And afterward, during the hours of the mother-and-son relationship, she would hold the upper hand; then she would have nothing to feel ashamed of.
The vermilion-haired girl turned her head and looked at her son. Those icy blue eyes gleamed as he maintained only a faint smile; there was no reading his emotions. Honestly, the deal seemed to cost the son far more—so why go this far?
Because he truly loves me…?
Darin shook her head hard. Even if her son sincerely loved her, it would change nothing.
Why is life like this…?
The thought that she had seized an opportunity arrived hand-in-hand with a wave of depression. Voluntarily spreading her legs for a man without love was something she had already done for twenty-three years. It was hardly difficult now. And precisely because of that, her heart ached all the more.
And for whose sake did I do that for twenty-three years…
The Viscountess had known that every time she received her husband, he treated their children well. There had even been times when he forced her to suck his cock under the pretext of Kael’s academy entrance.
She regarded herself as a whore. A filthy bitch who spread her legs for a husband she did not love, all for the sake of her son and daughter. And now, to reclaim her son, she must spread her legs for that very son—a lewd seductress.
I only did it because I loved Kael…
Because she loved her son, because she knew nothing but her son. That was how she had lived. At last she had thought life was becoming bearable—so why had it turned into this nightmare? Did Kael even understand her heart? No, he could not. If he had, he would never have done this to her.
Resentment toward one’s child is an evil thing. A woman who had wished to be a good parent could not fail to know that.
Yet in this moment she could not rein in the resentment blooming toward her son.
And since no other solution existed, she would simply have to accept even this with open arms.
—Softly.
The woman’s thighs, which until a moment ago had been clenched tight, began to part. Seated in her son’s lap, legs spread wide as she straddled him, the posture was truly wanton.
"…Hah!"
The instant silent permission was given, the hand that roughly dug into her breast was hateful.
"Haah…"
The baseness of fingers immediately slipping into her undergarments to toy with her wet cleft was revolting.
And last of all, she worried that her son might once again be speaking empty words.
But as always, she possessed no right of choice.
The only consolation was that her son was maddeningly skilled at sex.
Ought she truly to count that as fortunate?
I don’t know.
Dwelling on it would only make her head ache.
And so the Viscountess simply closed her eyes.