Chapter 2: Shattered Dreams

Mark

Something was definitely wrong with mom. Her return to competition was an utter disaster. She seemed distracted and missed the decisive acceleration of the favorites group, finishing somewhere in the lower top twenty. That might sound like a decent result, but for mom's standards it was at least ten positions too far back from where she could have finished.

Even though I was still a hormone-controlled pubescent teenager with little experience in life, it didn't take a rocket scientist to notice that I had probably something to do with it. Had she realized how my feelings for her had changed?

I couldn't believe that she would miss our goodnight-kiss. It had been a daily ritual since I was old enough to walk on my own, but she'd been away for competitions often enough to know that the world would go on and, seriously, at fifteen I was getting too old for such childish stuff.

Who was I kidding? I didn't skip down to the living room for the nightly smooch anymore, because I knew I'd probably be unable to withstand the urge to shove my tongue in her mouth, even though I didn't have the first idea about French-kissing, other than what class-mates bragged about in school. All I could think about was holding mom in my arms and kissing her senseless. Believe me or not, that was more constantly on my mind than any wet dreams of making love to her, even though I had those frighteningly often, too.

Mind you, I was an uncontrolled pile of hormone-ravaged horniness who whacked off daily over images of my naked mom, but intellectually I was well aware how wrong those thoughts were. A son wasn't supposed to have such explicit dreams of his mother. It was all an utter mess and on top of that, just as I had started to see mom as a woman, she inexplicably stopped sunbathing, even though the temperatures were just right for that. And I blamed that on myself as well.

To say our interaction was awkward would be an understatement. I spent even more time out with Jonjo or holed up in my room, still trying to suppress the unseemly feelings for mom. I wasn't doing a good job at that, and in September 1989, it all blew up in my face.

On my way to school I got a few strange looks from people I didn't know and when I passed the Bachlmayer shop, the family matriarch waved at me as she always did, but with a look as if someone had done something bad to me, somewhat pitying. I didn't really know what I needed to be pitied for. My life was quite fine, except for the fact that I was head over heels in love with my mom and couldn't do anything about it, because it was a big honking taboo.

When I arrived at the school gate, Jonjo was waiting at the entrance, and he was wearing a concerned face expression as well. In the distance I could hear different bits and pieces of conversation between excited classmates and older pupils discussing the anatomical particulars of a girl. That was nothing unusual. We had enough gullible girls in school who'd let their boyfriends take nude pictures of them and when they broke up the pictures would be passed round for general amusement by their vindictive ex-boyfriends. I never participated in such rituals, but I was well aware of them.

"Listen man, I told the principal that you're sick today. You should get outta here. You'll never hear the end of it," Jonjo said hastily as soon as I was within earshot.

I couldn't really make sense of what he was talking about until he took a large thick envelope out of his schoolbag and revealed its content. It was the latest PLAYBOY magazine and on the cover page was my topless mom prancing around on a beach wearing only the bottom piece of her running suit. "So Sexy Is Marathon!" said the headline.

Well, that explained why mom had been to Rio de Janeiro a whole week for a one-day race. She had won it, her first international win in fact, but seeing that magazine, that detail sort of faded into the background.

I shoved the magazine back into the envelope, took it from him with a curt "I'll need that," and walked off briskly without even saying thanks or anything.

On the way back all sorts of unbidden thoughts kept attacking my brain. Who had taken these pictures? Had he touched my mom? Had he even done the unthinkable? By the time I reached our house I had worked myself up into a jealous rage.

I stormed through the door and slammed it shut noisily. I was halfway through the living room when mom came in from the backyard, glistening with suntan cream and a towel draped around her bare torso.

I had of course suspected that her stopping the naked sunbathing had to do with me, but seeing that she just waited for me to be away so she could get naked again made me just more furious. I glowered at her, did a left face and stormed up the stairs to my room, slamming the door shut even louder than the entrance.

I knew she wouldn't follow me. First of all she needed to get dressed. She couldn't risk being seen half-naked by that leper of a son of hers, could she? She also knew it was better to give me at least ten minutes to calm down when I was really pissed off about something, even if it was something as stupid as this. What right did I have to see her body? None, but that didn't stop me from having a teenage boy jealousy fit.

I kicked off my shoes, sat down on my bed in a lotus position, and started to thumb through the pages, my hands shaking. Seeing the high quality glamour pictures of my mom should have made me rock hard in record time, but my irrational anger over the injustice of it all rendered me practically dysfunctional in the nether region.

There was one picture of her in her tight and skimpy two-piece USA track suit, dragging the side of the pants down to show her petite firm ass; one where she was leaning against a palm tree having lifted her top; one of her splashing about in the ocean completely naked and then there was the centerfold - my mom in all her naked glory, running along the beach at full speed, her long dark hair flowing in the wind. And she was baring it all to see for everyone with a few bucks to spare on a magazine.

Of course I was being hypocritical, in fact I was bigoted. I had produced more drawings of her than there were pictures in the magazine. Not only that, in fact I was selfish and blinded by jealousy over the fact that every adult in America was allowed to look at the woman I loved and I wasn't allowed to since late last year. I should only understand much later how pathetic I had been that day and how little consideration I had spared on mom's feelings in the matter.

I was still looking at the centerfold, when there was a knock on my door and mom entered without waiting for an answer. She didn't get far. Two steps into my room and she had recognized what was lying open before me and she let out a little shriek. Mom froze and looked at me like a deer in headlights.

"Why so surprised mom, did you expect I wouldn't find out? You could have at least told me beforehand, you know. I wouldn't have walked into school having to listen to my schoolmates discussing how hot my mom's hairless pussy looks."

Her face was now a grimace of open shock and of hurt. I was hurting her, but I was too caught up in my own temper tantrum to think straight, and the guys I'd overheard really had discussed the shaven particulars of a girl. I had merely been unaware that mom had been that girl. Knowing that now drove me crazy. The assholes had stared at my mom's pussy!

"I want to know mom. What is the problem you have with me?" I seethed, still completely irrational with jealousy. "You wait until I'm out of the house so you can sunbathe, and you wait until late at night when you think I'm sleeping to go in the pool. Why is all of fucking America allowed to see you naked, but when I'm around you behave as if something bad would happen if I saw your gorgeous tits for a second. What happened to 'we've been to the nude beach all our lives'? And what the fuck is all that about anyway? Why is my beloved mom naked in a fucking magazine?"

I angrily waved the magazine at her and forcefully threw it to the side.

You'll probably agree that I had a somewhat strange way of delivering a compliment. I saw tears running down mom's face and she fled down the stairs. Even over that distance I could hear her crying. I closed my door, because I needed to be alone. The last thing I heard before the door snapped shut was that mom was trying to spell the name Beatrice Karass to the operator at the phone company and make them understand that she wanted to call Germany.

As it dawned on me what a monumental prick I'd been, I buried my face in my pillows as the shame over my behavior crept in.

Lydia

I tried to keep his head steady, pressing a wet rag against his forehead, but Mark was still thrashing in the throes of what looked like a bad nightmare. He was mumbling incoherently and from what I could understand, he seemed to think I would abandon him for being mean to me and I would run off with the photographer who'd done the photoshoot in Rio with me.

Tears welled up in my eyes as I shook him to wake him from the nightmare. The talk with my sister Bea had been singularly unhelpful, as she'd only confirmed what I already knew - my own son was desperately in love with me and of course that made my secret decision to accept the Playboy offer a very nasty surprise for him. In hindsight it had been such a stupid idea to hope he'd never find out. Kids had somehow managed to get their hands on Playboy issues back in East Germany. What were the chances they wouldn't over here in America where the stuff was actually produced?

But there was something much more disturbing. During the talk with Bea and especially now seeing my baby boy suffer over something I wasn't entirely free of blame for, made me realize that his love for me was not even remotely as unrequited as he might think, but it was so utterly wrong to have these feelings for my own son. Now that this blasted Playboy appearance was almost guaranteed to boost my popularity, the media would get interested in my private life. Imagine the scandal if they found out I harbored intimate desires for my own son.

And it was so hard not to notice that Mark was becoming a man - and I mean a real man. Despite his distinctly non-athletic lifestyle he was well-built and since nudity had not been an issue in our household until a few months ago, I knew that his elusive father had left him with a rather manly genetic gift. Puberty had done a proper number on my boy and a certain male appendage had grown to a size that would be sufficient for most adult males of the species - and he was only fifteen and still growing.

I forced these thoughts and the forbidden arousal it caused out of my head. I had to put a stop to it before this would get out of hand. Our desire for each other was wrong on so many levels, and as the older and mature one I had to stop this.

Mark finally woke up with a scream, and it took him a while to recognize the situation he was in.

"I'm so sorry mom, I shouldn't have been so mean to you," he pleaded with me. "Please don't leave me."

I smiled at him, despite my inner agony. "I'm not going to leave you, Mark, and I'm not going to run off with someone else. It was just a nightmare. Yes, you said a few nasty things, but it's my fault, too, you know. I should have talked to you about why things happen. Sometimes I forget that you're fifteen already."

He hugged me close and I gently kissed him on the temple.

"Do you know why I did that?" I asked, pointing at the magazine that was now lying on my bedside cabinet. "The photos?"

He shook his head.

"Do you think I look good? And I mean not only my 'gorgeous tits'?"

That last addition to my question made him blush a deep shade of crimson. But then he gathered all of his shattered manliness and looked me straight in the eyes.

"You are the most beautiful girl in the world, mom."

I was startled a bit as I could hear that he was dead serious. Due to our history, he'd always been forced to be a bit more serious and independent than other kids his age, so I could tell from the determined undertone in his voice that those weren't empty words. There were millions of women he could have made very happy with those words, but I was the wrong one. I'm his mother.