My Mother’s Young Lover Lived Nude in the House

I grew up surrounded by women. My mother separated from my father before I was born, so my childhood unfolded between her, my grandmother, and an aunt, in a house where walking around in a bra or a robe was the most normal thing in the world. Even before I did, they understood that I was gay, and they never made a fuss. A naked body was never taboo in my family: my mother explained naturism to me when I was just a kid, and I learned to respect it like you respect any household custom.

When my grandmother died, the two of us moved alone to another city. By then I was already in college and still living with her, so I stopped being a child who needed to be looked after and became a kind of silent witness to her new life. And what a life she had.

My mother had always been pursued by a lot of men. She was friendly, talkative, the kind of woman who fills a room as soon as she walks in. She said she ignored them, but in the new house I started seeing a parade of “friends” who lasted one or two months and then disappeared without me asking anything. Sometimes I’d run into them in the morning, already dressed, while she moved around half-naked making coffee as if nothing were unusual.

The big change came when she had surgery. My mother had never been ugly, but over the years she had gained weight, and from one day to the next she got liposuction, had her breasts lifted, and had her hips touched up a little. Nothing over the top: she was left with a body that looked natural, the kind that makes people turn their heads in the street. Olive-skinned, straight hair, not very tall. After that, everything about her changed.

She started taking pictures all the time, wearing tight dresses, and what had once been occasional became daily: she’d come home from work, strip naked in the middle of the living room, and stay that way until she got into bed. It never bothered me. The female body does nothing for me, though I recognize that any man would have lost his mind over a woman like her.

***

After the operation she went out more, came home very late, had dinner with one man and another. For a while she got involved with men quite a bit older than her, gentlemen who picked her up in expensive cars and whom she never introduced to me. I didn’t complain: the house lacked nothing, and whatever I asked for usually showed up sooner or later.

That’s why I was surprised when she started seeing Maximiliano. Unlike the previous ones, Maxi was much younger than her: my mother was nearing forty and he was around twenty-eight. Tall, almost five foot eleven, white, with a body that had the look of someone who worked out at the gym. He wasn’t insanely handsome—he had acne scars—but he had something, a joviality that was contagious.

She introduced him to me a month after they started seeing each other. At first he struck me as shy, quiet, and I was even surprised by her choice, because Maxi didn’t have the money the others did. I never asked her what she saw in him. I only noticed how attentive he was with her, and that was enough for me to like him from day one.

Soon he started showing up at the house almost every day, waiting for her to go out. I remember one afternoon when he was sitting on the sofa and my mother came out of the bedroom topless, with her dress fallen to her waist, and stood in front of him so he could zip it up. I saw him do it with a red face, and I could hear him mumble something, embarrassed. She answered him, amused:

—Relax, he’s seen me naked since he was little.

And they left as if nothing had happened.

***

From that day on, Maxi lost his modesty in stages. First he stayed over when they came back late. Then he started walking around without a shirt, just in a tank top that showed off his chest and arms. The first time I ran into him like that he got scared, but my mother, topless beside him, calmed him down:

—Don’t be scared, you’ve got the same thing and my son already knows I like walking around naked.

I said something similar to break the ice, and he laughed.

What came next was a slow escalation. One morning I found him in the kitchen in boxer briefs, with a hangover face, and for the first time I really noticed the number of tattoos crossing his chest and belly. My mother hugged him from behind, ran her hands over his arms, and I understood that, besides his personality, those muscles drove her crazy too. So that’s what this is all about, I thought.

Little by little Maxi started acting like the owner of the house. He joked that he was “the man of the place,” and the truth was he fixed everything that broke or was needed. He didn’t do it for free: every time he repaired something, my mother would help him in her panties and he’d take the opportunity to pinch a nipple or kiss her neck. At first it made me a little uncomfortable to see her come out of the bathroom naked and have him smack her ass as he passed, but I ended up getting used to it. To me it was part of the scenery.

***

The day everything really changed was when they showered together and Maxi came out completely naked into the bedroom. Before, he always covered himself with a towel. That time he tried to cover himself with his hands, unsuccessfully, and my mother followed him just as naked, laughing:

—Why are you covering yourself, if my son has the same thing?

He didn’t answer. I didn’t say anything either, but I noticed my mother had some red marks on her chest. From then on, Maxi joined the household naturism. At first he had trouble with it: he’d show up hard and my mother would tell him to relax, that he couldn’t walk around like that. Over the days he learned to control himself and started moving around calmly, as if nothing.

I watched all this with a strange curiosity. I wasn’t turned on—I insist, men with my mother naked beside them didn’t provoke any of that in me—but I was intrigued by the total naturalness with which the two of them lived without clothes: cooking, watching movies, talking to me as if they were dressed. There was something hypnotic about witnessing an intimacy that didn’t include me and yet of which I was the only spectator.

One afternoon he set up a big mirror in the living room and I watched them both openly. He was up on a ladder, the tattoos tightening across his back; she was flawless, waxed except for one detail I noticed for the first time. When they finished, they went to take a shower, and when they came out my mother had shaved everything off completely. It was the first time I’d seen her like that. I realized how Maxi’s presence had transformed her entirely, down to the tiniest details.

***

I’d been asking to go to the beach for a long time, and Maxi managed to get an uncle of his to lend him a house on the coast for a weekend. The week felt endless. Finally Thursday midnight arrived and we packed everything. Maxi came straight from work, my mother greeted him with a long hug and asked him to take off his uniform so she could wash it. He stripped right there in the living room, and she looked at him with a desire she no longer hid.

—Better go take a shower —she told him, and on the excuse of putting away the clothes she went in after him. They took just long enough, because the water came out cold.

They came out laughing, each with a towel. She had bite marks on her chest and didn’t care that I saw them. We ate something quick and I went to sleep while they kept talking.

The house on the coast was old and, above all, had no privacy: the bedrooms had no doors, only thin curtains that made everything visible, and the bathroom closed with an accordion door that didn’t seal. As soon as we arrived, my mother stripped naked in the living room and Maxi copied her. That was already their natural way of being.

That first night we walked around the town center. It made me a little uncomfortable that people stared at them: her, older, with a spectacular body she had no hesitation showing off; him, shirtless, displaying muscles and tattoos. But the looks didn’t bother them. On the contrary, they enjoyed them. They walked hand in hand like two smitten teenagers, drawing the attention of half the town, and that seemed to energize them.

***

We spent the next day at the sea. At night they went out to dinner at a seafood restaurant, which I don’t like, so I stayed at the house with fast food and movies. They came back late, tipsy, laughing, and went into the back bedroom. I kept watching the movie, but curiosity, that old acquaintance, started tugging at me.

I went to the bathroom and, on the way back, I just peeked around the curtain. For the first time I saw them in the act. Maxi was kneeling on the floor, his head buried between my mother’s legs, while she writhed, gripping the sheets. She covered her face with a pillow to muffle her moans. It hit me hard to see her like that, in a side of herself I had never imagined. I shouldn’t be looking at this, I told myself, and I went back to the sofa.

But my conscience didn’t last long. A while later I crept closer again, quietly. This time my mother was on top of him, with her back to me, and they seemed more given over to kissing than anything else. I stayed a few seconds and went back. The curious thing was that neither of them ever let out a scream; only the occasional muffled sound, as if they knew I was nearby and preferred silence.

Later, focused on the screen again, I saw Maxi come out toward the kitchen, sweaty, thinking I was asleep. When he realized I was awake, he jumped and covered himself with his hands, stammering an excuse. My mother appeared immediately, equally naked, and stood in front of him to cover him up.

—Still awake? We’re leaving early for the beach tomorrow, go to sleep —she ordered.

I turned everything off and went to my room. As I turned the corner in the hallway I saw them from behind, bent over the suitcases, looking for something, laughing under their breath.

***

The next day I woke up very late, defeated by the heat. My mother hadn’t woken me, and I understood why when I tried to go into the bathroom: she was kneeling in front of Maxi, under the shower. I could only see his back, standing there, letting the water run over his face while he sighed. Then he lifted her up and they kissed. Watching them kiss had already become routine for me; the rest, not so much. I backed away before they discovered me.

We went back to the sea until noon. In the afternoon we went to a more distant beach, almost deserted, where Maxi stayed only in tight swimwear and the people who passed by looked at him brazenly. A couple whispered something and laughed. Again, they loved it.

The rest of the trip was a repetition of the same thing: me spying on them out of curiosity, them never making a sound, the whole house turned into a kind of set where intimacy was on display for everyone to see. I never got turned on, to be clear. It was the simple prurient thrill of witnessing something that didn’t belong to me, the fascination of watching my mother live her desire without a shred of shame.

***

On Sunday, before loading the car, my mother took out the trash and I saw several empty wrappers in a bag. Maxi drove back without a shirt, using the heat as an excuse, until we were almost in the city. On the way I watched them in the rearview mirror: how they laughed, how he rested his hand on her thigh and left it there, how they kept reaching for each other all the time. They were, simply, a happy couple.

After that trip, everything improved at home. Maxi moved in with us. They kept going around naked at all hours, and it stopped bothering me completely; more than that, I never again felt the curiosity to spy on them. I suppose I had already seen everything there was to see, and I understood that what they had wasn’t a scandal, just the way two people loved each other.

To this day my mother and Maxi are still together. Every time I go back to my country I visit them, and whenever I open the door to their house they greet me the same way: just as they came into the world, with not a stitch on and not a trace of shame.