The Strange Relationship We Had to Settle
Tonight, seven o'clock.
For me—no, for Mom and me—this was the hour we had to make a decision that actually mattered.
All those pecks we'd been sharing that had started to feel a lot like real kisses. The touching in bed that wasn't quite caressing and wasn't quite anything else. No matter how I turned it over, none of it was normal. We'd never laid a hand on the parts that counted, but the way we stroked each other's backs and hips, the way we pressed our mouths together—I wanted to put a real conclusion to that strange relationship today.
Anyone looking in would have called it bizarre. Something we had no business doing. And yet we'd turned our backs on that fact completely, climbing into the same bed just to feed our own hunger. Mom knew it. I knew it. I had no idea how to untangle any of it, but tonight we were going to settle this once and for all.
Before she got home from work, I laid out a few snacks and a couple of beers. Talks like this always went better with a drink in hand.
Ding-dong.
The doorbell rang at exactly 6:50. Mom was home. I walked to the front door and opened it, the electronic lock chiming as it released.
She'd clearly been chewing on it the whole way back. She smiled at me, a little awkwardly.
"You're home, Mom?"
"Yeah. Hey, son."
She still hadn't quite gotten her thoughts in order.
"Son, I'm gonna hop in the shower real quick."
The moment she was through the door, she escaped to the bathroom. Then again, I didn't know where to start either. Why would she?
Mom disappeared into the bathroom, and I sat down at the kitchen table to wait.
A good while later, the water faded, and she stepped out.
"I'll just throw some clothes on."
"Sure, Mom. Take your time."
She went into the master bedroom to change. I kept running simulations in my head, trying to figure out how to open. But of course my mind was a complete blank. Thinking this through alone was a lost cause.
A door clicked. A moment later, Mom came out of the bedroom.
Lately her beauty had only been blooming more, and the sight of her stepping out, shaking out her damp hair, left me completely stunned. A sweet soap-scent drifted ahead of her as she came closer, and all I could do was stare.
"Son?"
"Huh? Oh! Yeah. Mom."
She was only wearing shorts and a tank top, and somehow she looked that beautiful. She was my mom, and I still wouldn't have traded her for anyone on earth.
Only after she sat down did our important meeting begin. "Meeting" was a grandiose word for it. We were just trying to find some kind of compromise. But neither of us could bring ourselves to speak first. A taut silence stretched across the table, and we sat there for a long time, each waiting for the other to make a move.
"So—"
"Um—"
We opened our mouths at the same time.
"You go first, son."
"No. You first, Mom."
The words wouldn't come easily, so we shoved them at each other.
"Have a drink."
Mom picked up the beer bottle and poured it into an empty glass, then filled her own to the brim as well.
"Shall we talk after we drink this?"
"Yeah."
We drained the cold beer in one go, not leaving a drop. The chill sliding down my throat brought a little of my mind back.
"Mom."
I spoke first.
"Yeah, son."
"Our relationship. It's gotten kind of weird, hasn't it?"
"Yeah."
Of course. We both knew exactly what was going on. We'd just been pretending we didn't. Or maybe we'd been avoiding it on purpose.
"What we're doing right now... it isn't something a mom and son should..."
"I know. It's... inappropriate."
She admitted it before I could even finish.
"The kissing, too..."
"We've been kissing since you were little, haven't we?"
"It's weird, though. Doing it in bed, and for that long..."
A peck was supposed to be a quick kiss on the cheek or the lips, and that was it. But we'd been wrapping our arms around each other in bed and sucking on each other's mouths for minutes—no, tens of minutes—at a time. We never used our tongues, but that didn't make it normal.
"You're right. It does go on a little long... hah..."
Mom filled her glass again and knocked it back in one go.
"And taking our underwear off. Touching each other's ass..."
"I know. But..."
"I don't know what you and I are even doing. Or if we should keep doing it."
I poured myself another glass and drank it down. Mom looked at me in silence, as if turning something over. And then—
"Do you not like doing those things with me?"
"It's not that I don't like it."
The question came so suddenly that the truth just slipped out.
Not that I don't like it. God. What the hell was I saying.
"Hyeonsu. I'm going to be honest with you. Last time, when I was masturbating..."
"Yeah. I saw you then."
"No. When I was masturbating, you were watching me and doing the same thing."
I froze. I'd thought she hadn't noticed. She'd known all along. She'd known I was watching her touch herself, my hand wrapped around my cock, stroking.
"Hyeonsu, why did you do that?"
"I... I just... I couldn't help it."
"The truth is, I knew, and I pretended I didn't, and I kept going. I knew from the start that you were watching me."
That hit even harder. She'd known I was watching, and she'd kept masturbating anyway.
"And I didn't mind. I won't hide it—knowing my son was watching made me even more turned on. Honestly, Hyeonsu, you're the same way, aren't you?"
She'd seen straight through me. There was no point hiding anything anymore. Being honest about exactly where we stood was the fastest way through this.
"You've been looking at me as a woman, haven't you? Your eyes have been saying so lately."
I gave the faintest nod. Mom kept going.
"And I've been looking at you as..."
She couldn't quite get the next words out. She poured another glass and drank. We'd already finished a whole bottle.
"Do you see me as a man, too?"
I asked first. She looked at me—I'd said the thing she'd been about to say—and nodded.
"I don't know. You just keep feeling like a man to me... You are my son, but... it's... complicated..."
We saw each other as a woman. And as a man. Feelings that should never exist between a mother and her son. Mom and I stared into each other's eyes without a word.
Things had already gone this far. There was no point looking for a polite filter anymore. That didn't mean we could actually have sex, though.
"So... what do we do now?"
"What about you, Hyeonsu? Can you stop?"
"No."
I didn't dislike what we did together. I felt guilty, sure—but I'd been looking forward to those moments all the same. I simply couldn't stop the things we did in this strange relationship of ours.
"I'll be blunt, son."
"Okay. You decide, Mom. I can't."
Even now, she wanted to hold that last line.
"You feel it, and I feel it. We've already been caught by each other."
"Yeah."
"So. I know this is going to sound really strange... I know it's strange, but..."
She drank again. Then she went on.
"I want us to keep living like this, without crossing that very last line. What do you think?"
"...I... I'd like that."
It was a relief. She'd laid it all out so cleanly. Stay on this side of the last line. Don't go all the way. That was exactly how I felt, too.
We exchanged a look. No words were needed. We'd confirmed it with each other, and we'd agreed to accept it. A strange relationship. We'd live as that kind of mother and son.
"Then, Mom."
"Yeah?"
"...How far?"
Setting the limits would make it easier to actually start this relationship of ours.
"A little... further than now?"
I nodded. I knew exactly what she meant. Leave the door open a little wider than what we'd been doing so far.
My mom was bolder than I'd expected. Just a month ago, she never would have said something like this. But ever since this strange relationship of ours had begun, she'd changed a little. She'd grown bolder. She'd found her courage. And she'd gotten even more beautiful.
And now, once this conversation was over, we were going to let out all the lust we'd been holding back on each other. In bed, we wouldn't be mother and son. We'd be a man and a woman, touching. I didn't know how far it would go, but that last line was a promise we had to keep.
"Mom. Drink up."
"You too."
We tapped our glasses together with a bright clink. The tension in Mom's face eased. Mine did too. This relationship that had seemed impossible to resolve had, somehow, been sorted out more easily than I'd thought. Her bold decision. Without it, we'd still be sitting here reading each other's faces, swallowing everything we wanted to say.
Her wet hair looked especially sexy tonight.
"Mom."
"Yeah?"
"...You're beautiful."
"Pfft. You're pretty too, you know."
I suddenly felt embarrassed. It was the kind of thing you should be able to just toss out, but it had to circle around inside my mouth before it would come out. And why was my heart pounding like this all of a sudden?
I wanted to rain kisses all over her pale, milky-white shoulders. I could do that now, couldn't I? She'd said we could be a little bolder.
She seemed to feel the same way. She kept swallowing dryly, her eyes roaming over my body. And then she grabbed my hand. We laced our fingers together, the way a couple would. Like that, we looked into each other's eyes and sipped our beer. Neither of us said a word. But we both knew, in our hearts, that we didn't have to hide this kind of thing anymore. Once your feelings have been found out, there's truly nothing left to hide.
After we'd emptied a few more glasses, I stood up and leaned my face in toward hers. And then I pressed my lips to hers.
A soft peck. Then another. Then we were kissing in earnest—kisses that were still pretending to be pecks, pecks that had already become kisses. We stayed like that for a few minutes.
Then, all at once, Mom's tongue slipped into my mouth.
For a second the shock nearly knocked me out, but I took her tongue in. Warm, and soft. It was our first real kiss. As if we were going to make up for every kiss we'd been holding back, Mom and I tangled our tongues together like we were out of our minds. One of the beer glasses on the table toppled and hit the floor, but neither of us cared. The kiss was bold, more intense than anything we'd ever done.
We stood, seized each other's faces, and kissed like mad. Minutes passed. Tens of minutes. Our tongues never stopped.
This peaceful little nest of Mom's and mine. In this place, we were no longer mother and son.
At the end she drew my tongue out and sucked on it, long and hard. Our lips finally came apart, and we gasped for breath.
"Hah... hah..."
"Haaah..."
Our lips were flushed red and swollen. We looked at them and smiled at each other. It felt like something we'd been holding in had finally burst. A clean, dizzying release.
And then Mom said—