This story is fictional only and all characters are over 18.
The silence of the lockdown had become a physical presence in the house, a third occupant that muffled sound and stretched time into a dull, grey tape. For four weeks, the world had shrunk to these four walls, the days blurring into a monotonous cycle of worry, boredom, and the low-grade hum of anxiety from the news cycle. Adam, twenty-one, felt it like a pressure behind his eyes. His mother, Claire, felt it as a constant, weary ache in her shoulders.
It was a Friday that felt exactly like the Thursday before it. The evening news had been particularly grim. Claire, usually a moderate drinker, had poured a third glass of red wine, seeking a warmth the central heating couldn’t provide. Adam had matched her with bottles of beer, the alcohol a cheap and easy weapon against the encroaching stillness.
They were in the living room, a space that had become their entire universe. Claire was curled on one end of the large, worn sofa, her feet tucked under her. She wore a faded, soft cotton nightshirt, one of her ex-husband’s old ones, that hung loosely on her frame. It was navy blue, so worn it was almost grey in places, and it reached mid-thigh. Adam wore grey sweatpants and a black t-shirt that had grown tight across his chest and shoulders over the last year.
“Remember cinemas?” Adam’s voice was slightly slurred, cutting through the drone of the television. “The smell of popcorn that’s too expensive? The sticky floors?”
Claire smiled, a sad, distant thing. “I remember holding your hand during the scary parts of cartoons when you were little. You’d squeeze so tight.”
“I was a wimp,” he chuckled, taking a long swig of his beer.
“You were sweet,” she corrected softly. Her eyes were glassy from the wine, her usually neat, shoulder-length brown hair slightly mussed. The wine had eroded her usual careful composure, the mask of the capable mother. She just looked tired, and lonely, and surprisingly young in the dim lamplight.
The movie on TV ended, and another began, but neither paid it any mind. The conversation meandered—to friends they couldn’t see, to the surreal reality of empty streets, to the gnawing uncertainty of it all. The more they talked, the more the invisible barrier of parent and child seemed to thin, worn down by isolation and alcohol. They were just two people, adrift together.
Somehow, they started reminiscing about the wrestling matches they’d had when Adam was a teenager, clumsy, laughing affairs where he’d try to prove his newfound strength and she’d inevitably pin him with some clever trick.
“You cheated,” Adam said, a playful glint in his eye. He got up, swaying slightly. “You’d always tickle me.”
“A win is a win,” Claire giggled, the sound uncharacteristically girlish. The wine had made her flush, a pink heat spreading across her chest and neck.
“I think I could take you now,” he challenged, standing over her.
“Oh, you think so, big man?” she teased, setting her glass down with a clumsy thud. She pushed herself up, a little unsteady. “Prove it.”
It started as it always had, with laughing attempts at grabs and holds. He was far stronger now, his body that of a man, not a boy. He easily caught her wrists, her skin shockingly soft under his calloused fingers. She twisted, trying to break his grip, her body pressing against his. She was still quick, and she got an arm around his neck, pulling him into a headlock that was more affectionate than aggressive.
They stumbled, laughing breathlessly, and fell onto the sofa in a heap. Adam was half on top of her, his face buried in the soft cotton over her shoulder. He could feel the entire length of her body against his—the soft curve of her stomach, the firm muscle of her thighs. Her laughter vibrated through him.
The laughter began to die down, but the movement didn’t stop. The play-fight shifted, almost imperceptibly. His grip on her wrists loosened, his hands sliding down to encircle hers. Her struggle became less to escape and more a slow, rhythmic pushing against his chest. The air changed. The playful energy morphed into something thicker, heavier, charged with a tension that had nothing to do with competition.
Breathing became the only sound, ragged and loud in the quiet room. Adam could smell her shampoo, her perfume, the faint, warm scent of her skin beneath the wine. His head was spinning, a vortex of alcohol and a sudden, terrifying, electrifying awareness.
Claire felt it too. The fight had gone out of her. Her body, which had been tense with mock struggle, went pliant beneath him. Her eyes, wide and confused, searched his. This was her son. This was Adam. But the body pinning her down was solid, muscular, undeniably male. A shiver, one that had nothing to do with cold, racked her frame.
“Adam…” she whispered, and it was a question, a protest, a plea all at once.
His control, stretched taut by a month of confinement and a lifetime of subconscious fascination, snapped. The word “Mum” was a concept that belonged to another world, the world outside these four walls. Here, there was only this woman, soft and warm and smelling like home.
He lowered his head, his intention terrifying and inevitable. He didn’t kiss her mouth. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, his lips pressing against her pulse point. It was beating a wild, frantic rhythm against his mouth.
Claire gasped. A sound of pure shock. Her hands, trapped, clenched into fists. She should push him away. She should scream. She should do anything but what she did, which was to let her head fall back, granting him better access, a low moan escaping her lips. The loneliness, the touch-starved emptiness of the last month, rose up and devoured her better judgment.
It was permission.
Adam’s hands released hers and slid up her arms. His touch was no longer playful; it was deliberate, hungry. He pulled at the neck of her nightshirt, his mouth moving lower, finding the prominent curve of her clavicle. His tongue traced the bone, and she shuddered violently.
“Oh, God… Adam, we can’t…” Her voice was a thready whisper, even as her hands came up to clutch at his shoulders, not to push, but to hold on.
He ignored her, his movements fueled by a desperate, primal need. His large hands found the hem of her nightshirt and gathered it up. The air hit her stomach, and she flinched. His eyes, dark and glazed with desire, looked down at the exposed skin of her abdomen, the gentle slope of her hips, the plain white cotton of her briefs.
“I need to see you,” he breathed, the words raw and guttural. It wasn’t a request.
He pulled the nightshirt up and over her head, tossing it to the floor. She lay beneath him, exposed. Her breasts were fuller than he’d ever imagined, pale and heavy, with large, dusky pink areolas and nipples that were already pebbled tight from the shock and the cool air. A small silver locket he’d given her for Mother’s Day years ago rested in the valley between them.
He stared, his breath catching. “So beautiful,” he murmured, more to himself than to her.
Claire’s face was a mask of conflicting emotions—shame, fear, and a dark, unwelcome flare of arousal that pooled heat between her legs. She brought her arms up to cover herself, a reflex of a lifetime of modesty, but he gently caught her wrists and pinned them back to the cushions on either side of her head.
“Don’t,” he said. “Please. Don’t hide.”
He lowered his mouth to her breast, his tongue laving over the stiff peak before drawing it deep into the heat of his mouth. Claire cried out, a sharp, broken sound. Her back arched off the couch, pushing her flesh more firmly against his seeking mouth. It was an sensation so intense it bordered on pain, a direct line of fire to her core. Her hips gave an involuntary jerk.
He worshipped her breasts with his mouth and hands, alternating between them, sucking, licking, kneading the soft weight of them. His free hand slid down her quivering stomach, past the waistband of her underwear. He cupped her through the cotton, and felt the hot, damp evidence of her arousal.
“You’re so wet,” he groaned against her skin. “For me.”
The words shattered the last of her resistance. This was wrong. It was a sin, a societal taboo of the highest order. But his touch felt like absolution from the crushing loneliness. Her body, traitorous and alive, was screaming for more.
He hooked his fingers into the sides of her briefs and dragged them down her legs. She lifted her hips to help him, the action a final, silent surrender.
Now she was completely bare. He leaned back on his knees, drinking her in. Her pubic hair was a neat, dark brown triangle. Her legs fell open slightly, an instinctual invitation, revealing the glistening pink folds of her sex, already swollen and eager.
“Fuck, Mum…” The title, spoken in that context, with that tone, was the most erotic and devastating thing she had ever heard.
He stripped off his t-shirt, revealing a torso sculpted from hours at the university gym. Then he stood, pushing his sweatpants and boxers down in one frantic motion. His cock sprang free, thick and achingly hard, jutting out from a thatch of dark hair. It was veined and ruddy, the tip already glistening. She couldn’t look away, a mixture of maternal shock and raw female appraisal stunning her into silence.
He knelt between her legs, his body covering hers again. The feel of his skin on hers, full-body, was electrifying. He was hot, almost feverish. He reached down between them, his large hand guiding himself to her entrance. The broad head of his cock pressed against her, nudging, testing her readiness.
Their eyes locked. Her expression was terrified, pleading, yet her body was open to him, her hips making a tiny, desperate circle.
“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice strained with the effort of holding back.
She didn’t answer with words. She simply wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him closer, and nodded once, a tear finally escaping and tracing a path down her temple into her hair.
He pushed inside.
It was a slow, inexorable invasion. She was tight, and he was large. A sharp gasp was torn from her lips, her nails digging into the muscles of his back. He stilled, buried to the hilt inside her, a place he was never, ever meant to be. The feeling was unimaginable—a searing, wet, perfect heat that clenched around him.
“Oh, God…” he choked, dropping his forehead to hers. The reality of what they were doing crashed over him, but it was far too late to stop. The animal need was in charge now.
He began to move. A slow, deep withdrawal followed by a thrust that filled her completely. The initial shock gave way to a building, coiling pleasure. Claire’s moans were muffled against his shoulder. Each stroke was a violation and a benediction. He was her son. He was her lover. The two concepts fractured in her mind, leaving only sensation.
He fucked her with a growing intensity, a month of pent-up frustration finding its release. The sofa groaned with their rhythm. His thrusts became harder, faster, driving her into the cushions. He slid his hands under her backside, lifting her to meet him, angling himself to go deeper.
“Right there,” she mewled, her decorum, her identity, everything stripped away. “Oh, Adam, right there.”
Her approval unleashed something feral in him. He drove into her relentlessly, the sound of their slick, connected bodies obscenely loud. He was everywhere—his smell, his taste, his strength overwhelming her. He captured her mouth in a messy, desperate kiss, their tongues tangling.
She could feel the tension coiling tighter and tighter in her belly, a storm about to break. Her heels dug into the small of his back, urging him on. “Don’t stop… please, don’t stop.”
He was grunting with each thrust, his own climax building, a tidal wave he couldn’t hold back. “Come with me,” he demanded, his voice rough. “I want to feel you come.”
It was the command that pushed her over the edge. Her orgasm ripped through her, a silent, screaming convulsion that clamped down on his cock like a vise. Her body bowed off the sofa, a long, ragged cry torn from her throat.
Feeling her climax was his undoing. With a final, deep, shuddering thrust, he buried himself as far as he could go and came. A guttural, broken sound was ripped from his chest as he pulsed inside her, emptying himself in hot, endless waves.
He collapsed on top of her, spent, his weight crushing her into the sofa. They lay there, entangled, the only sound their harsh, ragged breathing slowly returning to normal.
The fog of alcohol and passion began to recede.
And the silence returned.
But it was a different silence now. It was no longer the silence of isolation, but the heavy, deafening silence of a line crossed that could never be uncrossed. The reality of their actions began to seep into the space between their sweating bodies, cold and horrifying.
Adam, still inside her, felt a nausea that had nothing to do with alcohol. He was buried in his mother. The warmth of her body, which moments ago had been paradise, now felt like a branding iron of shame.
Claire felt it too. The pleasure was gone, replaced by a cold, creeping dread. She stared up at the ceiling, seeing nothing. Her son’s weight was on her. His release was inside her.
He slowly, carefully, pulled out. The physical separation was almost as shocking as the joining had been. A profound emptiness followed.
He rolled off her, onto his back on the floor, unable to look at her. She curled onto her side, facing the back of the sofa, pulling her knees to her chest in a fetal position. She grabbed her discarded nightshirt and held it to her face, as if to block out the world, or perhaps his smell.
Neither of them spoke.
The lockdown stretched ahead of them, an endless sentence. But the walls of the house were no longer the prison. The prison was what they had just done, and the unbearable silence that now yawned between them.