Foreword:
Okay, here's quite a lengthy one I hope you enjoy. I've been there before with the discovery of old photographs showing a family member in very compromising positions, but I thought I'd offer it up again; this time with Darren finding a box full of pictures in his mother's wardrobe.
Anyway, here it is. Feedback is always welcome. Please forgive any errors in the text.
Most of all, thank you for reading.
GA -- Calpe, Spain -- 3rd of January 2016.
Prologue
Darren just happens to be facing the right way when the door cracks open. He's in bed, awake at God knows what hour, thoughts running round in circles. At first he thinks it's imagination, the product of a troubled mind -- a
very
troubled mind -- when his tired, scratchy eyes see a lighter sliver of dark where the door jamb should be. Unsure if he's functioning fully or not, he decides to ignore it.
But the lighter shade grows wider, a shadow moving within, a sort of flicker which makes him blink and strain harder to see.
The transition is immediate. Fully alert yet still half convinced it's all an optical illusion, a stressed brain playing tricks, Darren lies still, unable to focus his sight on anything more tangible than shadows dancing in the dead of night. However, the unmistakable click of the door snicking shut brings him all the way upright.
"What is it?" asks Darren while turning his head this way and that. He peers into the almost nothing, trying to make sense of
something
solid at least, his heart rate rising like a fighter plane from an aircraft carrier. He warbles a tentative, "Mum, is that you?"
Her voice comes from close by: "Shush, not so loud, you'll wake everyone up."
"Wuh-what is it?" he whispers. "What do you want?"
As if he doesn't know? As if his stomach isn't sliding with worry and dread.
"To talk," she replies as the bed dips under her weight. "To ask you what you thought you were doing? And to explain a few things as well. I mean, you must be wondering..." Then, as though sensing what Darren intends, just as he extends an arm to flick the switch on the lamp, his mother adds, "Don't turn on the light. I don't want to see you." There's a pause before she finishes with, "And I don't want you to see me."
Darren brings his hand back in close, snatches it away from the switch as though he's been burned before scooting away from where his mother is perched on the edge of his bed. "Talk?" he says as the blanket of fear settles heavier.
Caught
Amelia was five minutes into the journey when she realised she'd forgotten the keys. Without them, she wouldn't be able to open the shop, which made the decision to turn around inevitable. She muttered a curse and turned the Mercedes into a side street, retracing her route home where she left the car at the kerb instead of pulling into the drive. There really wasn't time to wait for the gates to slide open, not for such a quick in-and-out. Amelia decided it would be quicker to use the small pedestrian gate. That way she could walk around the side of the house, go in through the back door, find the damned keys, and be out again in a few minutes.
"Left my keys," Amelia said to Emma as she breezed through the kitchen.
Her daughter questioned her with a look and raised eyebrows as she turned from washing a cup at the sink in the kitchen. "Oh, I wondered..." Emma replied as her mother breezed through, her voice trailing off as Amelia kept going.
Amelia knew the precise location of the wayward keys: the big handbag she'd used last time she was out, which was currently lying next to her bed. She climbed the stairs quickly, reaching the third landing by taking the steps two at a time.
She stopped just outside the open door to her bedroom.
He was obviously engrossed, too wrapped up in what he was looking at to register his mother's arrival.
And by the time Darren noticed Amelia's presence it was far too late.
Darren's bedroom
Darren isn't sure, but it sounds like his mother chuckled an instant before she replies.
"Oh, Darren. Come
on
," she says with a sigh. "Take a wild guess. What do you think I want to talk about?"
"I'm sorry," he moans into the dark. "I ... I don't know what I was thinking."
Go away, go away, go away ... Leave me alone!
). "I shouldn't have been there ... I shouldn't have done it; I'd give anything to take it all back."
Her voice is low and as dark as the night: "You're a filthy beast, a dirty little animal."
Darren is so ashamed, so dejected he wails, "I'm so sorry."
To which his mother hisses, "Will you be quiet," while getting to her feet.
Darren feels the bed heave and senses rather than sees his mother flit through the dark to the door. He's partly relieved and also oddly disappointed when he thinks she's leaving, but, rather than making an exit, his mother lingers before moving back to the bed.
"Right," she murmurs while retaking her seat. "Stop making so much noise or you'll have the whole house awake."
Darren thought to mention they were on the third floor. His sister's family are on the level below; low voices are hardly likely to wake anyone up. But, just in the moment, he doesn't have the capacity to ask any questions. Dazed and confused, he holds himself close to the wall, emotions in turmoil.
"All right, so," his mother begins, "what were you doing sneaking about in my personal business?"
One:
A few days before
It took more than a few seconds for him to realise just who it was he was seeing. Hiding Christmas presents was forgotten, the carefully wrapped gifts still in the big blue Ikea bag he'd used to cart them all upstairs. Instead, Darren sat cross-legged on the floor, the open shoe box near his shins while he gawped in stunned disbelief at the old photograph he held between a forefinger and thumb.
Darren trembled when recognition set in. "Oh Jesus," he gasped while vague, not-quite-formed questions popped into his head.
How old is she?
he thought in the aftermath of the cold-water shock.
Nineteen? Twenty? ... And who took the picture? Mum, oh God, Mum -- what are you doing?
His insides gave this greasy little slide when he glanced down to see the box was crammed full of more of the same. There were hundreds of photos in there, and the ones he could see scattered about on the top layer all seemed to depict the same subject, the same girl. She was clothed in some, nude in others, her face all too familiar, easily recognisable regardless of the years which had past as she stared out at her son from a couple of decades ago.
Darren mind worked through the sludge. It was like thinking through glue, but he still had the capacity to notice her hairstyle and clothes -- when she had any on -- looked to be 70s in style.
He wasn't up to the mental gymnastics required for simple calculations; Darren couldn't quite manage to subtract his mother's fifty-seven years back to 1978 or '79, but that was definitely her posing nude for the pictures.
Darren dropped the first photo, then scooped out a handful, skipping them through his fingers one after the other while soaking up the detail of his own mother's ripe, voluptuous figure. "God, you're so pretty," he mumbled.
A moment later, the reality of his situation filtered through. Darren felt a tingle on the back of his neck, a feather-light touch that sent a shiver down his spine. He dropped the pictures into the box at the same time as he craned round to look back at the open bedroom door, his heart cranking up through a few gears when he realised anyone could walk past at any moment: his sister or brother-in-law or any of their brood. Not that they had any reason to be up on the top floor of the house, but Darren couldn't take the chance.
And what if his mother walked in?
Darren scrambled about when panic ballooned. He cursed when a flailing hand knocked the side of the box to spill photos over the carpet, their glossy surface spreading them like oil. He was on his knees as he scooped them up, desperate to cover his tracks and get out of his mother's room before he was caught.
"Shit, oh bollocks," he muttered, wondering if there was any kind of order to the way the pictures were stacked. The questions came at him like arrows: how often does she look in the box? Will she notice anything amiss? And, if his mother did notice, would she ask any questions?
Then, for Darren, the world stopped. He went still when he happened to glance into the box. He stared down and didn't notice the little "ack" sound that came up from the back of his throat. Time seemed to stretch as Darren watched his own fingers dip into the pile of photographs. To him it was like he was set on the ceiling, an observer looking on as the scene played out. It was as though he was watching a film.
Darren saw himself lift the picture out of the pile, gaze at it for what seemed an age, then throw a furtive look over one shoulder.
A moment later the photo went into the back pocket of his jeans.
Still out-of-body, he watched the Darren down below quickly tidied up the evidence, replacing the lid before he leaned into the wardrobe to shove the box back into its corner.
When his top half emerged, reality snapped back and he was back in the three dimensional realm. Darren became abruptly conscious of his body's response: he was sucking in breaths through his nose while his heart was a bass lub-lub bouncing around in his chest, the sound of it pulsing up into his ears while his stomach churned and the anxious need to pee pushed to the forefront of his mind. Also, alongside the fear and anxiety, on a deep, dark and somewhat disturbing level, he also awoke to the slither of some illicit and decidedly carnal emotion.
Darren paused, wondering if he should return the photograph to its hiding place, his hand going to the pocket, fingertips sliding over the glossy surface as the recollection of the image popped into his head.
Darren refused to acknowledge the emotion rising inside him as he gaped down at the picture. He denied the hot flare deep in his core, the sudden surge of arousal in that indefinable place between his balls and the pit of his stomach. Gulping down on the urge to haul out his cock -- which was fully erect and pulsing with need -- Darren let out a low, desperate moan while shoving the photo back into his pocket.
