Trevor's Mom

I flexed my hand and tested the knob. Unlocked, of course. Mom was the kind of person who locked her car three times but left her house like an open wound. I eased it open and looked around the immaculate living room. You could set your watch by the time Mom took her Saturday bath. I closed the door behind me and twisted the deadbolt.

The lights were off. It was still early enough that dim light filtered through the curtains. I slipped off my shoes and eased down the hallway. My cock was already hard. Heart pounding, I pushed open the bedroom door and listened for signs of life from the en suite. Silence. Absolute silence. I pushed open the bathroom door and pulled it closed behind me.

A scatter of candles ringed the lip of the tub, their flames painting little ulcers of orange on the tiles. Steam had blurred the mirror and turned the window into a ghost outline, my own silhouette smeared and unrecognizable in the condensation. In the flickering light, Mom looked like an aging screen goddess, reclined in the tub and waiting for the world to call her back to the stage.

You never really understand a person until you see the exact way they relax. When they think they are completely alone and all the walls come down. Mom’s eyes were closed, with one hand tangled in the towel at her neck and the other trailing in the water, drifting just below the meniscus like a dead fish. Her face slack, mouth open, chin doubled by gravity and lack of self-respect. The bathwater was milky with fragrant bubbles. Her robe was puddled on the floor beside the tub, a heap of blue terrycloth with one sleeve inside out, as if she’d peeled it off while running from something.

I didn’t move. Didn’t even breathe, for a good thirty seconds, just watched her chest rise and fall, the steam curdling above her with each exhale. Victory was a rush I hadn't expected this early in the procedure. Looking at my mother's aging and frail body, I knew I was going to take everything I wanted. There was literally no way she could stop me.

I don't know what tipped her to my presence. Maybe it was the instinct of prey, able to feel the glare of its impending death. She gave the first slow blink of a newborn. I watched the exact moment she realized I was in the room: a micro-spasm in her shoulder, a tightening of her jaw, then the whole body locking into a single, panicked axis. I didn’t say anything. Just stood where she could see me, arms folded, leaning against the door with all the casual menace of a parole officer on his lunch break.