Author's note: All characters depicted in this work of fiction are 18 years of age or older.
***
Ryan was getting really fed up with it. Here he was again, watching one of his friends drooling over his mother. It was almost a daily occurrence. And of course, all the comments: 'dude, your mom is so hot' or 'the things I would do if it was my mom'. He'd heard it all. Yes, he was perfectly aware that his mother was really attractive, but he'd never dare to think of her that way.
Sure, there were times when images tried to creep in his mind, but he always instinctively forced his thoughts to veer in a different direction. Ryan wasn't really concerned about it, he blamed it on his hormone ridden overactive imagination. He was a typical nineteen year old guy, thinking about sex every other second.
He had just walked in the kitchen, with his friend Luke beside him. Julia had the radio turned on and her back on them while doing the dishes and humming along with a random pop song. She hadn't heard them come in. Ryan turned to look at his friend and followed his stare to his mom's ass. She was wearing a pair of yoga pants that tightly hugged her curvy hourglass figure. For a moment, his eyes were also trapped on the sight of his mom moving her hips to the rhythm of the music, but he finally managed to snap out of it before he got caught.
"Hey, Mom," Ryan called over the music.
"Jesus!" Julia turned, startled. Her surprised expression softened immediately, replaced with a bright smile as her eyes fell on her son. "Oh, sweetie, I didn't hear you come in!"
"Sorry we scared you," Ryan apologized.
"That's okay, sweetie. I was completely distracted by the music," she explained. "Hi Luke," she added, turning her smile towards him.
"Hi Mrs. D," Luke replied with enthusiasm. He always looked so grateful for getting even the slightest attention from her.
"We're going to the basement to hangout for a bit," Ryan said, moving to leave the kitchen, then stepping back to pull Luke with him, noticing he was still staring with a stupid smile on his face.
Ryan often wondered if his mother knew the effect she had on men. If she did, she never showed it. She seemed completely unaware of her good looks and he'd never seen her behave in a suggestive, sexual or seductive manner with anyone. She was always the typical mom, friendly and approachable.
Sometimes, he wondered if she even liked sex. He tried to think back to when his father was alive, if it was any different then. He recalled them being affectionate towards each other, with the occasional kisses and hugs, but nothing over the top. But there was also the fact that his dad was more than twenty five years older than her. Maybe he'd lost his interest in the physical part of their relationship, or he couldn't perform? Maybe that wasn't their main focus, the reason they fell in love, anyway?
Because they had been in love. That he knew for certain. He was aware that many people, mostly family on his father side, never fully accepted Julia, accusing her of being a gold digger. For Ryan that just seemed ridiculous. Growing up in the same house with his parents, left absolutely no doubt that they worshipped each other. Besides, sure, his father had some money, but if that was all his mother was after, with her looks she could do way better. And she wasn't the type either. If anyone made the slightest effort to get to know her, he would see that.
After his father died suddenly of a heart attack four years ago, his mother was devastated, but had tried her best to hold it together for him. Ryan had taken it pretty hard, losing his father at that young age. The first year was tough, but in the end he had recovered and stepped up. After that, they both took care of each other and shared responsibilities as equals. They were a team, pretty much alone against the world. They didn't have the best relationship with the family on his father's side, and Julia didn't have any relatives left. His father had left them the house and some money, enough to live comfortably but not enough to not worry about the future, so Julia still had to keep her day job at the local gym as a yoga instructor.
Eventually, they both got over their loss. Ryan was expecting for his mom to step back into the dating pool at some point, and knew she would have men stumbling over each other to spend some time with her. But she never seemed to have much interest in that. She went on dates every now and then, but they never amounted to anything. He wondered why a beautiful woman like his mom wasn't getting laid regularly.
For his part, this was an aspect of his life he never had any problems with. Being a player on the football team made him quite popular with girls, and he took full advantage of it throughout high school. Now, on his first year in college, he had toned it down a bit, still getting laid regularly but being a bit more picky with the girls he hung out with. To his surprise, he had discovered that he was actually focusing more on a girl's personality, or lack thereof, rather than how hot her body was.
In the end, as much as he was concerned about his mom, he chose not to interfere. She was quite aware that he was sexually active, and she always seemed kind of proud of his success with the ladies, but she'd never given any hint that she would be open to discuss her own personal life. Ryan assumed she was a private person, or that having that kind of companionship just wasn't a priority for her. He often looked for signs that she was frustrated or depressed but he came up empty, he couldn't figure her out.
A throw pillow landing with force on the side of his face brought Ryan abruptly out of his reverie.
"Wake up, dude!" Luke laughed. "You're spacing out again, are you gonna play or not?"
They were in the basement, playing video games, but Ryan had a hard time concentrating as his thoughts constantly drifted towards his mother, concerned that she might be silently suffering in her loneliness. He wasn't sure what had triggered it today specifically, but he felt worried.
"Fuck you, Luke!" Ryan pretended to be pissed and grabbed a pillow next to him to return fire. Being a football player, he had a pretty strong hand, but by now Luke had stood up and was on the move, making himself a difficult target. Ryan didn't hesitate and launched the pillow with all his strength, aiming for Luke's head. His aim was good, but Luke was too fast and ducked, easily avoiding the hit. The pillow landed on the wall behind him, hitting a framed photo of Julia. The impact was hard enough to knock it off the wall and send it on the floor, face down. The sound of glass shattering echoed in the room.
"Shit!" Ryan hissed.
"Um..." Luke stared at the fallen frame with a guilty look.
"Ryan? Is everything okay down there?" Julia called from the kitchen.
"Yes, Mom!" Ryan called back.
"Sorry, man," Luke said. "I think maybe I should be going, you don't seem to be in a mood for video games anyway."
"Yeah, sorry, I'm a bit distracted today." Ryan sighed. "Go, I'll clean this up."
He heard Luke walk upstairs, say goodbye to his mother, then the front door opening and closing a few seconds later.
"Dammit," he murmured, a shard of glass falling as he picked up the framed photo. He turned it around to find the glass completely shattered and the frame broken. The photo had hung in their house for more than ten years. It used to be located in their foyer, one of the first things people saw when they walked through the house entrance. Not long after his father died, his mom moved it down to the basement. He knew it was her favorite. He wasn't quite sure what was so special about it, but he'd caught her looking at it intently many times. Sure, it was beautiful, but so were most pictures of her.
This particular photo was taken during a trip to Paris, several years ago. She'd gone together with his dad to celebrate their anniversary. She must've been in her early thirties, but she hardly looked any different now, at forty-six. It was like she'd stopped aging around the time that photo was taken.
Ryan knew that his mother had worked as a model during her twenties, and looking at the photo now up close, he could clearly see why. Apart from a great body, nature had also gifted her with an exceptionally beautiful face. He admired her delicate bone structure and her soft, perfectly symmetric features, framed by dark wavy shoulder length hair. She had delicate translucent skin, with freckles faintly visible over her nose, full sensual lips, and big blue eyes. Her eye color was a unique shade of blue, so dark that people often didn't notice it under low lighting. But it looked very deep and vibrant in this particular picture.
The photo looked like it might've been taken by a professional, although he knew photography was one of his dad's hobbies. The frame was quite bigger than the actual photo which seemed to only be around seven by five inches. It was a close-up of her face, the frame ending a little below her collarbone. The background seemed out of focus; he couldn't tell where it was taken.
Ryan opened the back of the frame to remove the photo. He knew his mother would be really upset. He would have to find and buy a new identical frame for it and hope she wouldn't notice it. With the back cover out of the way, he was surprised to find that there was more than one photo tucked inside. Intrigued, he carefully took hold of the edges to pull them out, mindful not to damage them on the sharp glass shards.
As he removed them and looked at them more carefully, he realized there weren't more photos, it was just one big photo, folded three times. With his curiosity peaked, he unfolded it to see the full picture.
And that's when the world came crushing down around him.
It was a full body shot of his mother. She was wearing a loose fitting black top, with the open neck reaching the edges of her shoulders and leaving her collarbone exposed. And that was it. That was all she was wearing. Everything below her waist was completely exposed. Unfortunately for Ryan, that wasn't the worst part. Seeing his mother naked would've been shocking, but he would've gotten over it, eventually. No, what shook him to the core was the fact that she was sitting on an equally naked man's lap, and his very hard and thick cock was buried to the hilt inside her asshole. A man that very clearly wasn't his father, based on the dark color of his skin and his muscular build.
The photo had been folded in such a way that it would look like a regular face portrait when placed inside the frame. Ryan kept examining the photo, hoping to find something to explain what he was seeing, but he always came back to the same conclusion. His mother was a cheating whore.
He felt like a fucking fool. Only moments before, he was full of concern for his mother being lonely and not having someone to be intimate with, only to now find out she was fucking other men behind his father's back. And she even hung photos on the wall, in his own house, to taunt him.
