Chapter 1: The Photo I Shouldn’t Have

My thumb hovers over the folder named “LR” on my laptop screen, the two letters glowing like a guilty beacon in the dim light of my bedroom. I’ve had this folder since the week Dad married her—two years, three months, seventeen days. I know the exact count because I’ve marked every time I’ve opened it and come so hard my vision blurred. It started innocently enough: a screenshot from her Instagram story, one of those casual post-run selfies she posts without thinking twice. Black running shorts hugging her ass so tight the fabric creases where her cheeks meet her thighs, the waistband riding low enough to show the dip of her hipbones. I saved it. Then another: her stretching after a 5K, one leg up on the porch rail, hamstring pulled taut, sweat rolling down the inside of her thigh in a slow, glistening line. The sports bra soaked through, dark patches blooming between her C-cups, nipples sharp little points under the wet nylon. I saved that too. Then the backups—photos Dad never meant to sync to the family cloud, shots of her bent over tying her shoes, ponytail swinging, the curve of her lower back arching just right. I’ve jerked off to these images more times than I’ve spoken to her in person since she moved in.

Tonight the room is warm, the window cracked, letting in the faint smell of cut grass from the neighbor’s yard. I’m already naked from the waist down, shorts tangled around my ankles on the carpet. My cock is heavy in my hand, skin flushed dark, veins standing out like cords. I’ve been edging for forty minutes straight, lube slick and warm, palm gliding slow from root to tip, thumb circling the head every time I zoom in on a new detail. Right now it’s the photo of her after last month’s half-marathon: face flushed, lips parted, sweat beading on her collarbone and trickling into the valley between her breasts. The way her abs flex when she breathes, that faint runner’s V-line arrowing down into the waistband of her shorts. I squeeze harder, twist at the crown, feel the familiar coil tighten low in my gut. My balls are drawn up tight, aching. I’m so close I can taste copper on my tongue.

This is fucked up. She’s my stepmom. She used to ask me about school, made me peanut-butter sandwiches when Dad worked late. But nothing—nothing—compares to her. Not the porn tabs I close the second I think of her. Not the girls at college who try to flirt. I close my eyes and it’s her vanilla-lotion-and-sweat smell flooding my nose, the one time she hugged me after a run and I nearly came in my jeans from how warm and salty her skin felt against my cheek. I stroke faster, breath hitching, the wet schlick of my fist filling the room. My hips lift off the chair, chasing the edge, pre-cum beading at the slit and dripping down my knuckles.