The Woman I Call Mom
"Hyeonsu, time to get up."
Mom's voice pulled my eyes open, slow and easy. She stood over me with a bright face, a rice bowl in one hand and a pot lid in the other.
"Mm~ I'm up, Mom."
Only after she'd confirmed I was actually awake did she patter out of the room. Whenever she looked at me, her face was always full of smiles. She was the kind of person who'd shown me nothing but brightness — I couldn't even remember the last time she'd gotten angry.
But even a mom like that had lost her temper with me, just once, like a burst of flame. It was the year I turned twelve. The day I'd thrown a tantrum and screamed, "You're not even my real mom!" What would a clueless twelve-year-old even understand? Still, back then, the fact that she was my stepmom had felt so unbearably wrong. That was probably the last time I ever saw her angry.
"Hyeonsu, are you still in bed?"
Mom's voice from the kitchen snapped me fully awake.
"No. I'm up now."
I got out of bed and headed for the living room, then wrapped my arms around her from behind as she cooked, holding her close. The sweet scent rising from the nape of her neck drifted pleasantly into my nose.
"What's for breakfast?"
"I made that soy-braised beef you like. So two bowls of rice, got it? You've been losing weight lately."
"Okay!"
The warmth of her back against my face was enough to heat my skin. There wasn't an ounce of belly fat on my stepmom.
No. On Mom.
She was thirty-eight now. Still in her prime as a woman, and yet she'd given all of that up to raise me on her own. No — even now, living just the two of us, she was still raising me.
Twelve years ago, on my tenth birthday, Dad had brought her home and introduced her as my new mom. That day was still vivid in my mind. She'd been twenty-six then — I could only imagine how beautiful she'd been. Thanks to my successful father, that was the moment I'd been given a mom that gorgeous. I'd just stared at her, dazed, for a long time. I'd been so out of it at that first glimpse of real beauty that it took her laughing and giving me a playful boop on the forehead to snap me back to my senses.
But Father had walked out of the house in less than a year. They said he wasn't the type who could settle in one place, though I never really knew the exact reason. Every so often he'd send a large sum of money to Mom's account, but he'd never once shown his face since.
And yet Mom had raised me — a boy who didn't share a single drop of her blood — with the most devoted care. They say the bond of raising a child runs deeper than the bond of bearing one. She paid several times more attention to me than other kids' moms ever did, and tried to do everything for me.
"Try some of the other side dishes too."
"Okay."
Mom slid the freshly made soy-braised beef toward me. I scooped up a full bite with my chopsticks and put it in my mouth.
"It's good, right?"
"It's delicious. My mom really can cook, I'm telling you."
Only then did she break into a bashful little smile and pick up her spoon. She swept her long hair over to one side and started eating, unhurried.
"Mom, what time are you finishing today?"
"Same as always. Why? You have something going on tonight?"
"No. You just look tired lately."
Mom ran a small hair salon in the neighborhood with Aunt Jisu.
"Any weird customers at the shop lately?"
"Nope."
"If anyone bothers you, call me. I'll come running."
"Oh my. Having a son like you really does make Mom feel so safe. Hohoho."
Like bees to a flower, a fair number of male customers found their way to the salon. And of course they did — she had the kind of looks and the kind of body that made thirty-eight impossible to believe. The fortunate thing was that she wasn't alone. There was Aunt Jisu, her friend since childhood, and Aunt Yerin, who worked as a flight attendant and came in to help at the shop whenever she didn't have a flight.
The three of them had placed first, second, and third, side by side, in a local beauty pageant when they were young. Mom had taken the crown, and Aunt Jisu and Aunt Yerin had followed after her — and from then on, I'd heard, they'd been inseparable. Even back in elementary school, someone was always there when I came home. If Mom was busy, it was Aunt Jisu. And when even that was hard, Aunt Yerin would make sure I ate and look after me. So in a way, I had three moms.
"Hyeonsu, don't just work from home. Get some exercise too."
"Yeah, I guess I have put on a little weight lately, huh?"
"Want me to sign you up at the gym nearby? You gonna go?"
"Nah, I'm fine. Here, feel this."
I flexed my arm for no real reason, showing off the muscle.
"Oh~ Our son's got some serious muscle, huh?"
Mom gave my arm a light squeeze, then nodded and smiled. I worked freelance, so I didn't have a commute. I handled almost everything from home, communicating with the company through email and messenger.
"Is my son doing the dishes again today?"
"Of course. You just go get ready for work."
"Thank you~ heh."
After finishing her meal, Mom kissed me on the cheek and went into her room. It was always the same morning pattern. After we ate, I did the dishes. Once Mom left for work, I'd go to my room and get to my own work. Every now and then Aunt Jisu or Aunt Yerin would join us for breakfast, but still.
Anyway, around the time I was almost done with the dishes, Mom opened her door and came out.
"Son~ thanks for doing the dishes~"
"All ready?"
"Yep~"
Even though I did the dishes every day, Mom always made a point of thanking me. But then I saw the clothes.
"Mom. Isn't that outfit a little too tight today?"
"This? It looks fine to me."
She glanced down, turning this way and that to inspect what she was wearing. A short skirt, black stockings sheer enough that you could faintly see through them, and over that a tight t-shirt that put her chest on full display — an outfit so daring you'd have to wonder if she was really a married woman. Add a face that pretty on top of it, and of course the male customers never stopped coming.
"Should I change?"
The way she looked at me with her eyes slightly downturned was adorable.
"No, I was just saying. Go on, get to work."
"Tch, you're no fun."
A smile spread across her face again.
"Hyeonsu. I'm heading out."
"Okay. Got it."
I peeled off the rubber gloves, hung them on the sink, and walked over to her. And then, lightly, I pressed my lips to hers.
Peck. Peck-peck.
Only after two or three short kisses did Mom put on her shoes. Ever since elementary school, Mom had always kissed me on the lips before she went out. It was a habit that had never stopped, and today was no different. It had always been that way, so I'd thought of it as natural, and up until a certain point I hadn't felt anything particular about it.
But after I became an adult — after I'd opened my eyes to sex — kissing Mom had started to feel a little awkward. Maybe it was the same for her as it had always been, but every time our lips met, I felt something strange. That feeling when her warm lips covered mine, carrying the faint, sweet scent of her makeup. I couldn't name it exactly, but in that moment, the sense of her as a woman overpowered the sense of her as Mom.
When I thought about it, a sixteen-year age gap wasn't particularly large, and it wasn't particularly small. Turn on the TV and you'd see celebrities marrying or dating people with that kind of gap all the time.
"I'll be back, son~"
"Yeah. Be careful."
And once Mom had left for work, my own morning routine would begin. Sometimes I'd shower and get my work ready in advance; other times I'd take an early walk. I was spending that time alone when it happened.
Ding.
My phone chimed with a text. Who was messaging this early?
Aunt Yerin, the flight attendant, always sent a message like this whenever her flight wrapped up. Then she'd stop by the duty-free shop and pick up whatever I needed.
Aunt Yerin, Mom's friend, would call me "son" sometimes too. She'd known me since I was little, so it made sense. But just because the aunts had packed my lunches, walked me home from school, and looked after me since elementary school didn't mean all of them saw me as a son.
Aunt Jisu, for example.
"Haa. Hyeonsu. A little deeper. Hngh~ Haa! That feels so gooood~"
Aunt Jisu lay spread beneath me, her legs thrown wide open. I drove my hips into her from above, hard enough that the bed felt like it might collapse.
Schlick. Schlick. Schlick.
My cock split her open and slid in, swallowed smooth, feeling every fold of her insides as it pushed in and pulled out again and again. Pre-cum poured from the head in a frenzy, and every time the ridge of my cock scraped along her inner walls, a moan burst out of Aunt Jisu.
"Haaaah~! Yes. Haa~ I'm going crazy."
She moaned at the top of her lungs, her palms dragging wildly down my back, pouring out the pleasure flooding her body.
"Auntie. You can't just come over the second Mom leaves. What if we get caught~ Haa~ haa~ haa~"
"Hngh~ I already factored that in... Haaang! Haaang~"
"Just be careful, okay?"
"Haa~ I know~ Haa~ haa~"
Every so often, after Mom left for work, Aunt Jisu would come over to our place. The moment she walked in, we'd unleash all the lust we'd been holding back. Aunt Jisu, who ran the salon with Mom, spent that brief window before she had to clock in making the most of it with me.
Looks and a body that lived up to her beauty-pageant title. Just being inside her was enough to make me feel like I could come. And that aunt was naked beneath me now, rubbing her whole body against mine. Every time I slammed my hips forward, her huge breasts rolled like waves.
"Haa~ Two days without it and I guess I got too worked up. The second your cock went in I lost it. Haa~ haa~"
"Haa~ haa~ You like your friend's son's cock that much?"
"I love it~. Love it enough that I want it in me every day~. Haaang~!!"
Aunt Jisu had been my first. The day I'd become an adult, Mom and Aunt Yerin had both had something urgent come up, so neither of them had been able to look after me. That was when Aunt Jisu had come over, and the two of us had ended up drinking wine. It was my first time drinking, and it tasted so good — that warm, fuzzy buzz was so new and so pleasant — that Auntie and I polished off three bottles that night.
I'd woken up the next morning still drunk, and found Aunt Jisu sleeping naked beside me. I was naked too, of course. The area around the bed was littered with tissues stained with cum, and the panties we'd stripped off were lying on the floor. That was the moment Aunt Jisu became my first woman.
After that, we'd meet up now and then to have sex. In Aunt Jisu's car. Or at a motel, where we could let our lust run wild. Sex between the friend's son she'd once called her own, and the mother's friend I'd grown up calling Auntie. It had gone on for a whole year now, and these days we'd have bold, reckless sex at home after Mom left for work.
"Haa~ Hyeonsu. Put it in deeper~ Hngh~!!"