Mom pulled the car over in front of the therapist's office and leaned over to give me a kiss on the cheek.
"Have a great session baby" she said.
"Whatever" I replied, feeling frustrated and annoyed to still have to be seeing this quack.
"I'll pick you up at 2!" Mom said as she began to drive off.
I made my way up the steps of the brownstone and into Dr. Lane's office. Dr. Angela Lane had been my therapist for the past few years. Mom and dad said I had an "attitude" problem and that she would help me focus my anger towards more productive things. It all started after one overly frustrating day when mom's nagging and annoyance finally sent me over the edge and forced me to let out a "Fuck off mom!" That was the final straw for dad. It was an immediate grounding followed by my first appointment with Dr. Lane.
I pressed the button letting her know I had arrived and sat and waited in her living room. I always thought being a therapist and working out of your own home was a strange idea. What if she had a lunatic as a client who lost his mind one day and was out for blood...he'd know right where she lived. The office door opened and Dr. Lane gestured me in.
"Welcome Frederick."
I hated when people called me by my full name, but no matter how many times I corrected her, she would never call me Fred.
"So I'd like to pick up where we left off, but first, how was this past week? Are you feeling like you've made any progress in your resentment towards your parents?"
"I guess" I lied.
"That doesn't sound very convincing."
"I don't know what you want me to say! Do I love my parents? Sure. But it's hard to get past the fact that my dad is a fucking moron who doesn't know how good he has it, and mom is too fucking weak to do anything about it. And meanwhile, I'm just supposed to take it from them that somehow I'm the one with who needs help?"
"Frederick, this is not the first time you've referenced your father's lack of appreciation for his circumstances. Can you explain that a little more? What do you mean exactly?"
"I mean...he convinces mom to marry him when she's 19, she's a 10 out of 10 and he's a fat, balding loser, and for some reason, she loves him and has his children and plays housewife and he can't even find the strength to touch her! But he has no problem fucking his god damn golf instructor!"
"Frederick, what did we say about making accusations you can't prove?"
"Oh I can prove it. I found her panties in the back of his car. And the seat smelled like sex and pussy. I may be a virgin, but I know what pussy smells like doc."
"Well why do you assume it was some other woman and not your mom's panties?"
"Because she doesn't own those panties..." I stopped as soon as I realized what I had said, but it had already come out.
"Interesting. And how do you know that she doesn't own those panties?"
"I...." Uh oh. "I don't. I just...they didn't seem like her size. They were tiny, and slutty. The kind some 18 year old whore from the country club would wear."
There was a long pause as Dr. Lane jotted down notes in her book.
"Look, all I'm trying to say is, it's hard to respect my dad, and sometimes it feels even harder to respect mom for staying with such a bum."
"Frederick, you know that everything we talk about in this room stays in this room, and it does you no good to be dishonest in here. So, when I ask you this next question, really think about staying honest and unashamed. Have you been going through your mom's panties?"
"What?!?" I defended, embarrassed.
"I will also just add that that would not be abnormal and that sons being intrigued by the sexuality of their mothers is not a novel concept."
I was trapped...in a corner of my own making.
"Fine."
"Fine...as in you..."
"Yes! Happy?" I snapped at her.
"Why don't you tell me what you were thinking about the first time you went through your mom's drawers."
I figured there was no use trying to move her off of this conversation. Once Dr. Lane sunk her teeth into something, she rarely ever let up.
"I was just curious to see what I'd find."
"And what were you looking for?"
"Something sexy...lingerie or sex toys or something."
"Did you find what you were looking for?"
"Yes" I replied after a moment of shame.
"Frederick, there is no shame in this room. I am not judging you in any way, shape or form, and you should not judge yourself either. This is an opportunity for us to open a box in your mind previous hidden and locked up, and perhaps find some answers to who you are and why. Tell me what you found."
"I found a dildo and a vibrator...some lubricant."
"And what did you think about that? That must have been an interesting side of your mom to be revealed to you."
"I was happy."
"Why happy?"
"I don't know. I guess I was happy to know that she pleasures herself, since I know dad doesn't."
"What did you do next?"
"Nothing."
"Frederick..."
"What!?" I snapped again. "What? Do you want to know that I grabbed her dirty panties and sniffed them while I jacked off? That I sucked on her toys trying to taste any pussy left on it? Fuck! Why are we talking about this?"
"Is that what you did Frederick?"
Long pause.
"Yes!" I huffed.
"And were you fantasizing while you masturbated with her toys and panties? If so, what about?"
"I don't know" I said with my head hung low. "Her, I guess."
"Frederick, last month we discussed how you enjoy porn. I want to ask if any of the porn you watch is incest related, or perhaps of women that remind you of your mom?"
"Maybe..."
"Which?"
"Both." I admitted. "I found a woman who looks just like mom who does a lot of incest porn."
"And how often are you going to that style of porn when you are masturbating?"
"Every time..."
"Frederick, let's point this towards the potentially obvious answer that's sitting right in front of us. Would you say that some of your hatred of your father might be rooted in some form of jealousy? Could it perhaps be that you want your mother, physically...emotionally...and that you resent your father for not taking advantage of something you wish you had?"
I sat there, silent, not totally sure how I got myself into this situation with Dr. Lane. This was not a revelation to me at all...I knew I wanted my mom, but I was NEVER going to let anyone else know that! But here I was, spilling it all out to my fucking therapist.
"There's no use lying about it I guess" I shamefully admitted. "Does that make me a sick person? I want to fuck my mom...does that make me some awful pervert? What should I do?"
"That does not make you a sick person. It does not make you a pervert. You are one of millions of men throughout the history of time who will hold some type of sexual desire for their mother. Maybe you've heard of Oedipus Rex? Lust for the mother is tracked back past ancient Greeks. It might be a little more graphic today, with today's porn, but it all comes from the same internal desire. You spent nine months inside your mother, and then you spent years at her breast, holding her and sucking at her nipple for sustenance and life. It is completely common that at some point, your mind could find its way toward lusting for her sexually. You are not a pervert."
"Really?" I was genuinely surprised by this response. It was almost as if she were taking my side on something I thought was closer to a demon I had inside me, than a normal human instinct.
"Really." She affirmed.
"So what do I do to stop it?"
"Well, in my experience, there's really three paths you can take. The first, and most common, is that you do nothing. You try to bond with your father and work to let go of this hate, and you work towards having a solid relationship with your parents. You continue to have this sexual fantasy, and perhaps you find other outlets in life to scratch at that itch when you need to - whether that be porn, or roleplay with a partner, etc. The second path is you treat it like any other addiction, and you purge porn from your life. You train yourself to see your mother in a different light, slowly, and with deliberate effort, and you distract yourself from these thoughts by finding new sexual desires in other women. It will take years to get it to a place where you don't ever think about her that way again, but it is possible. The third path - and the one I will admit I have seen the most success in - is that you sit your mother down and tell her everything. You tell her how you feel, what you've done, your thoughts, your fantasies, your obsessions, and the two of you work it out together. Nothing will help you through this faster than honesty and openness. Once you've taken that weight of secrecy and guilt off your shoulders, you can more easily move past it."