Diane's Son
I ran a chalked hand down my thigh, smoothing the matte black fabric that stretched taut over quadriceps shaped by decades of calculated stress. My reflection, brutal in the morning gym light, stared back from three separate mirrors, one positioned on each wall so that wherever I looked, I saw the predator and not the prey.
The air in my studio was thick with the scent of latex, sweat, and old iron. I waited. Two minutes before the scheduled time, the soft slap of bare feet on the vinyl stair-treads signaled his arrival. I angled my body to present maximum intimidation: stance wide, arms loose but knotted with tension, mouth set in a line that could be mistaken for a grimace or a smile depending on your level of optimism.
He entered, as instructed, in plain black sweatpants and a faded college T-shirt that hung like an accusation. He kept his eyes on the floor, as if maybe the scuffed rubber matting would open and swallow him. Not today.
“You’re late,” I said, though he was not.
He flinched and recalibrated, using the familiar apologetic grimace. “Sorry, Mom. I, uh—”
“Shut up. Take off your clothes.”
My son froze, mouth twitching at the corners. I could feel the calculus unspooling in his head: What do I get if I refuse? What does she do if I comply? He risked a glance at my face, found no comfort there, and looked away. Hands shaking, he peeled the T-shirt up his torso, exposing a pale, underfed chest and two pink nipples so small and flat they barely registered as features. The sweatpants came next, clumsy with resistance around his hips, then boxers, which he hooked with his thumbs and drew down in a single, mortifying motion.
Naked, he stood before me. Cock flaccid, balls tight to his body, limbs shivering in the air-conditioned cold. He wouldn’t meet my eyes, so I waited for him to look up. When he did, I let silence sit between us until it became unbearable.
“Hands behind your back,” I said. “Heels together. Chin up.”
He obeyed, if only because his default state was terror. I paced a slow circle, sneakers squeaking over the rubber. His skin shone with a nervous, almost chemical sheen; I could see the faint outlines of his ribcage, the sad protuberance of a stomach with neither muscle nor grace. I made a show of appraising him from every angle, crossing my arms to accentuate my own biceps, the veins in my forearms standing out in sharp relief.
“Posture,” I said. He stiffened, but his shoulder blades still slumped forward, years of digital cowering making proper alignment impossible. “Pathetic,” I said. “A lifetime in my house and you can’t even stand up straight.”
He made a low, helpless sound in his throat. I poked a knuckle into the line of his back, right where it caved into a shallow bowl above his glutes. “This is what happens when you spend ten hours a day hunched over a keyboard. Do you know what you look like?”
After a slight hesitation, he answered. “No.”
“Like a mollusk.”
He flushed, red blotches climbing his neck, settling in two uneven patches across his chest. I moved around to face him. “You think ...