Mom's Taboo Wish

Oh, but it could have been so sweet. If he had dared. If he had found the courage. His cock swelled, filling his hand, as he gazed at her small, trim body. Not as busty as some. But he had never been attracted to women with breasts the size of cantaloupes. In his eyes, his mother's slim, petite body was perfection. And that view had only been enhanced the previous evening. He wondered if she had felt the same siren song of attraction he had, if her body responded to his in the same way.

God. He was so hard now that he was aching. A sudden mad urge filled him. To slip down his shorts and stroke himself to release right there. But then his mother stood, brushed off her hands, slipped the screwdriver into a back pocket, and headed towards the door. Feeling like a kid who was about to get caught stealing from the cookie drawer, he jerked his hand out of his sweats as she slid the patio door open.

"Have fun weeding?" he asked with a smile.

"You know, you're never going to get them all," she replied. "That's what old Miss Phelps down the street used to tell me when I first bought the place. I'm not trying to win. Just fight them to a draw." Her eyes strayed to his crotch, then back up to his face, her lips curling in an amused smile. "Good movie?" she asked.

He found his face heating. It wasn't every mother who remarked, no matter how obliquely, on her son's erection. "It was at a sexy bit," he stammered.

"Oh, yes," she agreed cheerfully, and glanced at the television. "I always thought the prison rape scene in Shawshank was sexy as hell. Or maybe it was something else that got your motor running?

"I'm going to go clean up," she added, sauntering away. A look over her shoulder showed him her mouth, curled in a smile that made his heart skip.

"Try not to think too much about me when I'm gone. I would hate for you to have an...accident."

Chapter 4: Double Vision

The next morning dawned cool and cloudy. Brendan woke up around six, pulled his blankets around him more comfortably, and turned over, perfectly content to not get up until a more civilized hour. Noon, for instance.

His mother, on the other hand, had other plans. Just when he was drifting off again, she pushed open the door to his room and said, "Just what I thought. Get up."

"Whazza?" he muttered muzzily.

"Work, Brendan. You start today." She jerked down his blankets heartlessly. "You told me getting up early wasn't going to be a problem, remember? So let's get moving. The nursery opens at eight, but I want to get there early so we can get your paperwork done. Now, come on." She set her hands on her hips and fixed him with a stern eye. "Get up."

"God. The sun isn't even up yet," he complained, slowly getting to his feet. He rubbed his eyes, blinking. "You know, I could have been naked under there."

"And what a treat for me that would have been," she said acidly. "My terrible curiosity about the size of my son's package could have at last been answered. That is, if I didn't get a good long look yesterday." She glanced down at his middle, decently covered by a pair of navy-blue boxers, and smirked. "No morning wood today? Too bad. A girl does like to feel appreciated." She turned and walked towards the door. His hands twitched as he watched the sexy sway of her hips. Perhaps sensing his stare, she smiled over her shoulder at him. "Thirty minutes. Be ready."

"And how are you going to get there, if I'm the one driving you?" he muttered, making sure she couldn't hear him. But he headed for the bathroom. You know, I might have made a mistake. Last semester I didn't have a single class before ten in the morning. And now I'm going to be up at seven every day. Gross.

Though on the other hand, he thought as he stepped into the shower, the hot water sluicing away the last remainders of sleep, I get to spend all day with Mom. Kind of. He soaped his crotch, his fingers lingering on the swelling length of his penis. God, she's so hot. How can I get her into bed?

His imagination shifted, painting an erotic picture of Miranda lying on his bed, sunlight gilding her lightly-tanned body. He hovered over her, his cock hard as he entered her, her arms wrapping around him tight, her voice sighing into his ear as plunged into her wetness...

"Brendan? Fifteen minutes. Are you almost done in there?"

"Come in and find out," he gritted between his teeth, and for an instant, wasn't sure whether he meant it or not. If his mother did walk into the bathroom and twitch aside the shower curtain, would she be impressed by his erection? Or repelled?

His cock made his decision for him. He closed his eyes and let himself go, his rod throbbing in his fist as his orgasm hit, shooting ropes of cum into the air before they fell to the base of the shower, mingling with soap and shampoo and swirling down the drain.

His legs wobbled and he sagged against the side of the shower, overcome by the sheer force of his climax. His balls felt drained, completely empty, and he wondered how simply jerking off in the shower could feel better than the last time he'd had sex.

Because you were thinking about Miranda when you were doing it, a small voice told him.

A small fist hit the door of the bathroom. "Brendan! Ten minutes! Let's go!" his mother's voice snapped impatiently.

I guess she's not a morning person, he snickered as he turned off the water.

He had to rush to make it to the nursery by seven, his mother fuming in the passenger seat next to him. But he pulled into the gravel lot a few minutes early.

"Follow me," she said, striding across the lot to the long, low building which housed the offices for the nursery. Her legs ate up the ground, and he had to hurry to keep up with her.

A few people were already inside, standing around and sipping coffee, dressed in heavy, durable clothes that looked like they had seen a lot of hard work.

"Brendan!" An older woman, her dark hair slowly turning silver, walked over to him. "Miranda told us you would be starting today!"

"Hi, Mrs. Bixby," he replied.

"Don't you 'Mrs. Bixby' me, young man." She waved a finger in his face. "Here, I'm Gail." She winked at him. "I can't have all the rest of the people here think I'm getting too good for them."

He laughed as the owner of the nursery pulled him aside, waving a vague hello at his mother, who went to pour herself a cup of coffee. "Sit down," she said, pointing a peremptory finger at a chair in front of her desk. "I've got your paperwork here, to make it all nice and legal with the feds and the state." She handed him a pen. "Get cracking."

He obliged, bending over the desk and filling out his name, address, social security number, and a dozen other piddly details.

"You do look like your father," the older woman mused quietly,

His eyes jerked up. "You knew my dad?"

She nodded. "Knew his parents, really. He was always a wild one, your daddy. Not a bad kid. But never with a thought to the future. A lot like your momma was, back in those days. Still is, a bit. Though she's settled down a lot since she started working here." Her faded blue eyes were sharp. "Is it true about what I heard? She dumped Rusty?"

Brendan wasn't sure how much of his mother's business he should be airing. But he figured word would get out sooner or later. "Yeah. Good riddance, if you ask me."

"Me, too. Though I guess the guys will be starting the pool again."

"The pool?" He finished up the paperwork and handed it over.

"Yeah." Gail sighed sadly. "Your momma is the sort of woman who always seems to need a man around, Brendan. So there's a pool about how long it will take her to hook up with someone new. Usually doesn't take much longer than a week or so."

He capped the pen and handed it over, smiling thinly. "I don't think so. We made a deal. No more losers. I'm making sure of it."

"Oh?" She raised an elegant eyebrow. "Well, good luck with that. It would do me good to see her with a good man for a change."

"Me, too." He stood up. "So. What's my job?"

The older woman grinned evilly. "Whatever we tell you to do."

*****

Miranda was relieved that Gail Bixby had taken Brendan off her hands. It was awkward, working with her own son. Especially when she considered the simmering sexual tension that had been growing between them for days.

She knew it was wrong. That she shouldn't be having these feelings for Brendan. But ever since Saturday afternoon, when he had run Rusty off their property, she had found her eyes straying to him whenever she wasn't doing anything else. He was so damned attractive it made her body heat just looking at him. Not too tall, maybe. Just a shade under six feet. But the way he walked and held himself, with an athlete's grace, made him appear taller.

She sighed wistfully, watching him through the windows as he unloaded a truck with old Jim Wiggins, the muscles of his arms bunching as he accepted another flat of flowers and lowered it to a waiting dolly. Not even Brendan's father had affected her at such a primal level. In his bedroom that morning, she had barely been able to keep from walking into her son's arms. He had been so cute, all sleep-rumpled and sexy, his chest dusted with hair, and a thicker trail leading from his belly button down to his groin. Half of her wished that he had been sleeping naked, so she could finally get a good long look at what he had been hiding from her.

She snickered, then bent back to her paperwork, setting up the schedule for the next week. I bet it would be a long look. And probably a thick one as well. That one glimpse the day before was seared into her memory, of Brendan sprawled on the couch, the unmistakable bulge of an erection tenting his shorts. His stuttering excuse had been so transparently false she almost laughed.

Had it been for her? Did her son find her as attractive as she found him? She wasn't under any illusions where young men were concerned. Their hyperactive libidos were one of the things about them that she had liked best, before prudence had led her to pursue men closer to her own age. She knew that Brendan's erection could have been caused by any number of things - anything from a wandering hand to a pleasant daydream. But what if it had been her making her son hard and stiff? The thought was as exhilarating as it was terrifying.

I bet he would listen when I told him what I liked, she sighed. Her groin throbbed, and she squeezed her thighs together, clamping her lips closed on a silent moan. In fact, he would have to! She smiled. Fuck me right, Brendan! Or you're grounded!

"Penny for your thoughts," Gail said, resting a hip against the side of her desk.

She started, then covered it with a sip of lukewarm coffee. "That I am through with men who take me for granted," she said, surprised into bluntness. "I had a good long talk with Brendan, the other day. He told me pretty much what all my friends keep saying. I've spent half of my life trying to fill up the hole in my life with anyone who could tie their shoes without a set of instructions. Maybe I should set my standards a little higher."

"Well, I'm happy to hear that," the older woman replied. "I mean, I'm just your boss, and I'm not interested in my employee's personal lives-" Miranda rolled her eyes at the patent falsehood, and she grinned - "but I would like to see you with a man who lifted you up instead of holding you back. I mean, you've gone from cashier to assistant manager in nine years. And I didn't cut you any slack on the way. Think about what you could do with a man who was a partner.

"Speaking of which, have you warned Brendan about the Terrible Twosome?"

She glanced at a corner, where Melanie Warren and Brigitte Harris were gossiping and filling a rack with flower and vegetable seed packets. "Why?"

"Because I heard them whispering about Brendan. You know how those two are, Miranda. Always looking for some fresh meat during summer break." She shrugged elaborately. "What they do on their own time is their business. Lord knows there's not much to do around here. But I don't want a repeat of what happened with Jim Bob Cullen a couple years back. Poor kid actually thought Melanie was in love with him." She snorted. "If he had been able to think with anything but what he had hanging between his legs, he'd have realized that Melanie only cares about one person, and that's herself."

She glanced out the window, where Pedro Alvarez had come up and was speaking rapidly to Brendan. Her son answered haltingly in Spanish, and the older man laughed and clapped him on the shoulder, obviously delighted to find someone who actually tried to speak his language. "I think Brendan's smarter than that."

"I would have said the same about Jim Bob," Gail replied. "The boy was practically engaged, for heaven's sake. But he still let Melanie lead him around by the nose."

"I'll warn him." But she smiled quietly to herself. That tramp isn't going to lay a finger on my boy. I know what he wants, even if he doesn't.

And it's not her.

*****

"Whew." Brendan collapsed into the seat of his car. "That sucked."

His mother slid into the seat next to him and closed the door, her nose wrinkling at the not-entirely-unpleasant smell of sweat. "That? That was nothing. We took it easy on you today."

"What?" He glanced at her as he pulled out of the parking lot. "I was hauling stuff around all day. I think I pulled a muscle I didn't even know I had!"

"Wait until we send you out to lay down some sod for some family who wants a new lawn," his mother warned him. Unlike him, she looked fresh as a daisy. Even her sling, which had been a constant reminder of her accident over the last few days, was conspicuous by its absence. "Or when we get a shipment of a couple hundred saplings. Everyone lends a hand then. Even the folks who usually spend their day behind a desk, like me.

"And did you think this was going to be easy, Brendan? I warned you weeks ago, when you asked about it. This is hard, dirty work. The kind of work a lot people think they're too good to do." She eyed him sidelong as they waited out a red light. "I certainly hope you're not one of them."

Stung, he straightened out of his tired slouch. "I can do anything you guys throw at me," he retorted hotly.

"Good," Miranda replied calmly. "Since Jim wanted to know if he could take you out on the truck tomorrow. Seems like you impressed him today. He allowed as how you weren't completely fucking useless, in his words."

"What a ringing endorsement," he grunted, pulling away from the intersection as the light turned green.

"For Jim? Actually it is. He doesn't have much use for college types, as he calls them."

"Ah." He smiled as they pulled into the driveway. "So this is adulthood, huh? You work under degrading and humiliating conditions, and at the end of the week someone gives you not enough money?"

"At the end of two weeks, actually," his mother said, getting out of the car. She smiled at his crestfallen expression. "We're on the biweekly plan, Brendan. Get used to it."

By the end of his first week working with his mother, Brendan thought he would go crazy if something didn't happen to snap the tension.

He had never felt this way about any other girl. Oh, he'd been in relationships before. A couple of girlfriends during high school, and a one-night stand or two during his first year of college. But none of them had affected him on such a primal level.

He and his mother were always around each other, for one thing. It might have been different if they'd been working at different places. But unless he was asleep, his mother was always nearby. And somehow, it seemed, she was always in position to maximize the effect of her body. Whether she was standing on tiptoe to put a box of cereal in a cabinet, accentuating the clean lines of her legs, or chatting with a customer at the nursery, her trim, slender body in profile, showing him the exquisite curves of her breasts, he couldn't escape her.

Not that he wanted to escape her. And not that Miranda wasn't showing every sign of returning his attention. When he was at work, it seemed that she was almost inventing excuses to be nearby. And when they were at home, there was usually a good-morning hug that lingered just a little longer than was necessary, a good-night kiss that strayed close to his mouth, and touches and caresses which gained intensity as the days went by. As the weather warmed, spring deepening into the slow humid days of a Kentucky summer, she took to wearing clothes which did all they could to show off her body - shirts that were cropped short, shorts that exposed her slim, attractive legs. And he would be a complete idiot if he didn't realize that she was walking around without a bra a lot more often these days, the curves of her breasts barely hidden by whatever inadequate garment she was using to cover her chest.

It was, to be perfectly honest, driving him absolutely crazy. He wanted, desperately, to make a move. But how could he? One wrong step, he knew, and the chance would be lost. Maybe forever.

Sunday was a day off for both of them, and after six days in a row of work, he needed it, worn out by a job that demanded a lot more physical labor than he had expected. His mother was cavalier about his suffering, observing with callous disregard that she had warned him, so he really had no one to blame but himself.

He was sitting on the couch, lunch over and way too early to be thinking about supper, half-watching a ballgame on the television, when his mother came in from another search-and-destroy mission against dandelions, crabgrass, creeping Charlie, and other nefarious denizens of the backyard.

"Mission accomplished?" he asked as she flopped down into the opposite corner of the couch and kicked off her sandals.

"For now." She sighed and wiggled her toes.

"You know, I hate to say it, but I'm sure Gail would cut you a deal if you wanted to have some of the guys come by and give the lawn a treatment. That way you wouldn't be spending a couple of hours a week digging up weeds."

She scowled at him. "I can take care of my own lawn without any help, thank you very much."

"All right." He raised his hands in surrender. "I was just making a suggestion."

"Here." Her feet plopped into his lap. "Do something useful, will you? My feet are killing me. Can you give them a rub?"

He wrinkled his nose at her, even as he turned and muted the television. No great loss, since the Cardinals were kicking the ever-loving crap out of the Braves. "You know, I'm not a registered foot-massager. Or whatever they're called. I could probably get arrested for doing this without a license." He grinned at her. "Think of the shame and disgrace to our family name."

"Less talking, more massaging," she said, wiggling her feet impatiently.

"All right." He kicked off his own shoes and put his back against the arm of the couch. His mother's legs were between his, and he took her left foot in his hands. The sole was lightly stained with grass clippings, the residue of his mowing the yard the evening before.

"Oh, god, that's good." Her head fell back as he massaged the sole, his thumbs circling slowly. Her toes flexed, stretching and curling in a visible sign of her pleasure. "Don't mind me, Brendan. I'm just going to lie here and drool for a while."

"Well, that's certainly attractive," he smiled.

"Who am I supposed to impress?" Her other foot slid up the inside of his thigh. "Here. This one is getting jealous."