Editor's note: this story contains scenes of incest or incest content.
*****
Blanche felt herself blush from her cheeks down to her toes when she saw the book that her daughter, Claire was holding. It was the journal Claire had given to her several months earlier, on the occasion of Blanche's 65th birthday. Claire had offered it as a gift of support for her mother's stated desire to pursue a dream of becoming an author. It was meant to chronicle story ideas, character sketches and plot outlines for future literary masterworks. Blanche had struggled for weeks to use it for just that purpose. She had failed. Between its leather covers, Blanche had soiled the sheets with her most private fantasies and perverse sexual thoughts.
Blanche had spent a week house and puppy sitting for her daughter and son in law. She had failed to pack the book into her case when the couple returned. For three days, since discovering that it was missing, panic had been her constant companion. The call from Claire, advising her that the journal had been found, overfilled the elder woman with more anxiety than relief. The fear of losing her book of secrets was nothing compared to the terror she felt if it should be read by anyone. Though she was not religiously inclined, she did utter a silent oath when Claire called to announce that the book had been found. "Dear god," she prayed, "please don't let her read a single sentence." It was a flushed and flustered Blanche who stood now at her daughter's front door.
"Sampson got hold of it," Claire explained, indicating the ragged and torn bottom corners of the book. "We caught him chewing at it in his bed the other night."
"It's my own fault for not paying closer attention to him." Blanche reached for the book, but Claire did not offer it up.
"You were probably busy at other things, Mum. Come in and have some tea with me. We could use a good talk."
Blanche felt her knees buckle. Claire had never before called her mother, "mum" in actual conversation. It was an expression reserved for the daughters Blanche had created in her journal. In that world, a proper mum was not only permitted, but also expected to be submissive and available to her adult sons and daughters. "I really can't stay, Claire. I've errands to run." Blanche had chosen flight over fight. Her desperate hope was to retrieve the wretched item, flee from the house and put enough distance of time between this moment and the inevitable talk to dull the shock of Claire's discovery about her own mother's secret lusts.
Claire quickly closed the door behind her mother, cutting off the woman's retreat. "Come in and sit down, Mum. You have a good bit of explaining to do." Claire tapped the top cover of the journal to emphasize the nature of their pending talk.
The tone now wielded by her daughter, coupled with her own shame overwhelmed the elder woman's will to resist. "I didn't mean for anyone to see those scribbles, Claire...least of all you. They're just rambling thoughts. They're wicked and horrible wanderings of mine." Claire did not respond to her mother's repentant outpouring. She directed the woman to sit on an oversized ottoman, which had been moved from its normal place on the far side of the room to a spot only a few feet in front of the sofa. A trembling Blanche complied. She continued to plead with her daughter to give the book back, or to burn it outright and to forgive her for the perverted thoughts she'd written down.
Claire stood for a bit, towering over her petite and slender mother. What she wanted was to sit beside the overwhelmed woman, to put her arms about her and reassure her that nothing she'd read of her mother's secret desires would dislodge her affection or diminish her respect. What she wanted was pushed aside, to make room for what she felt certain was needed.
