The Month I Had to Take Care of My Mother Changed Everything

I don’t want to drag this out, so I’ll get straight to the point. I was twenty-two, had finished college, and still lived with my parents. I spent most of the day shut in my room, in front of the computer, trying not to hear the fights coming from the living room.

My parents had been arguing for years. My father, Esteban, was a violent man, sick with jealousy. My mother, Marina, had been a model when she was young and, although she no longer worked at that, she still had the body and face that had made her famous back then. Anyone who passed her on the street turned to look. That drove my father crazy. He accused her of things that weren’t true, checked her phone, and timed her whenever she went out to do the shopping.

Things got worse when he started saying, right in the middle of their fights, that I wasn’t his son. My mother cried in the kitchen and I hid in my room with my headphones on. Sometimes my father would leave home for days. He came back darker than before, smelling of alcohol and someone else’s perfume. I suspected he had another woman. My mother did too, though she never said it out loud in front of me.

With her, the relationship was different. Marina had had me when she was eighteen, so the age gap between us was small: she was forty, I was twenty-two, and on the street we’d been mistaken more than once for a couple. We watched the same shows, listened to similar music, laughed at the same jokes. When my father blew up, she would step in so things wouldn’t end up landing on me. I owed her a gratitude that bordered on devotion.

One afternoon, after a worse-than-usual fight, my father stormed out, slamming the door behind him. Marina stayed quiet for a while, then told me she needed some air. She called Carmen, a high school friend who lived a few hours from the house, and they made plans to hike a hill the next day. Carmen arrived early that morning with two bicycles tied to the roof of her car. She was a cheerful woman, very different from my mother, and she knew how to make her laugh. I was glad. I hadn’t seen Marina with that look on her face in months.

—Take care, Diego —my mother told me before leaving—. If your father comes back, don’t answer him. Go to your room and that’s it.

—Have fun.

They left laughing, with the bikes on the roof and the radio turned up loud. It was a sunny day, though the trail, after the rain the night before, must have been muddy. That was key to what happened.

Six hours later, while I was cooking something for lunch, the phone rang. It was Carmen, her voice breaking. Marina had fallen on a tricky descent, landed badly on the river rocks, and broken both wrists. She was at the town hospital, awake and conscious, but in pain. I asked for the details and warned my father, who reacted as always: insulting Carmen, insulting my mother, saying he wasn’t going to go pick up “that idiot.” He hung up without saying goodbye.

***

They got home at the end of the day. Marina came in with both hands in plaster up to her elbows, her arms hanging as if they weren’t hers. She was pale, her skin still dirty with earth, and there were red marks on her face. Behind her, Carmen was carrying the bag. My father showed up an hour later, just in time to shout what he’d been holding in.

—It’s your fault, Carmen. You’re responsible. I’m not wiping her ass, I’m warning you. That’s on you.

—Don’t insult her —my mother snapped—. This is my house too, and you’re leaving. Now.

—I’m done with this shit family. And if I’m lucky, I won’t come back.

—As long as I never have to see you again —said Carmen, who had a short fuse—, I’ll take care of whatever needs taking care of.

My father grabbed a bag, stuffed it with two handfuls of clothes, and left before I’d even finished hearing the sentence. The door slammed like a gunshot. Marina stood in the middle of the living room, trembling, unable even to cover her face with her hands. Carmen hugged her. I stood in the doorway, not knowing what to do with my newly turned twenty-two years.

That night Carmen took care of everything. She bathed Marina, changed her, fed her dinner bite by bite like she was a little girl. Marina laughed softly at the whole thing, grateful. I tried not to stare too much, but when Carmen brought her out of the shower wrapped in a towel and her wet hair stuck to her neck, I saw my mother’s breasts outline under the fabric and felt my dick harden inside my pants. I turned away fast and went into the kitchen. The house was charged with something else, a strange intimacy that had never moved through those walls before.

***

Carmen had to go back to her city the next day. She couldn’t miss work. She spent the night calling hospitals and agencies to find someone who could come take care of my mother during the twenty days in plaster. No one had immediate availability. The only thing she managed was a nurse who might be able to come for two hours a day, starting the following week.

I heard everything from the hallway. When Carmen hung up the last call, I walked over.

—I can take care of her —I said—. I know how to cook. I can help with whatever.

Carmen looked at me for a second longer than necessary. Then she smiled.

—You’re a good son, Diego. But it’s not just cooking. It’s everything. Bathing her, dressing her, doing her hair, taking her to the bathroom. It’s a lot.

—I’ll do it anyway.

—Talk to your mom about it.

The next morning, before Carmen left, the two of them spoke quietly in the kitchen. I couldn’t make out what they said, but when I came out, both of them were smiling. Carmen patted my shoulder as she said goodbye.

—Take care of your mom. Now you’re the man of the house.

She said it with a strange tone, a sideways smile. Then she left.

***

Marina sat on the couch with her legs tucked up. I brought her a glass of water and held it while she drank. Her lips were dry.

—How are you? —I asked.

—Better than yesterday. It hurts less. But I can’t do anything, Diego. Nothing. Not even tie my hair up. Not even scratch my nose.

—I’ll take care of it.

—I was going to call the nurse. But first I wanted to ask you if you’d be up for it. There are going to be things that… aren’t pleasant. Bathing me. Taking me to the bathroom. Wiping my ass, Diego, so you understand me. I’d rather you did it than have a stranger come into this house.

I stayed silent for a few seconds. Not because I was unsure, but because I knew that if I opened my mouth too fast, my voice would give me away. I took a breath.

—No problem. How could I say no?

—I was afraid you’d say no. —She smiled with half her face, still in pain—. Carmen was right.

—About what?

—Nothing, never mind. Just between us.

That was the first time she looked at me differently. As if she saw me not as a son, but as someone. I felt my throat close and something in the middle of my chest start beating where it shouldn’t. And lower down too.

***

The first few weeks were a lesson in patience and in little crossings that changed temperature without my really understanding why. I helped her get dressed every morning. I brought her clothes over, she lifted her arms, and I pulled the shirt over her head slowly, careful not to brush the plaster. The first time I had to fasten her bra behind her, my fingers shook. Marina was standing in front of the mirror in her panties, and I had her bare back in front of me and, reflected there, her two breasts hanging, large, with dark nipples wrinkled by the cold. I couldn’t not look. My cock got hard in the second it took me to get the straps over her shoulders. She saw my eyes in the mirror. She gave a little laugh.

—Easy, I don’t bite.

—You’re not helping.

—I know.

I washed her with a sponge, sitting on a little stool in the shower, her hands wrapped in plastic bags so the plaster wouldn’t get wet. At first I looked at the ceiling, looked at the floor, looked at the tiled wall. Then I stopped looking anywhere else. I ran the sponge over her shoulders, her back, her waist. I ran the sponge over her breasts, slowly, circling around the nipples until they stood up, hard and dark, pointing at me. She said nothing, but she closed her eyes and breathed through her mouth. When I spread her legs to wash her cunt, I could feel the skin of her thighs lifting with goosebumps. It wasn’t cold. I know because I felt the same way, and because a couple of times, without meaning to, while I was rinsing between her legs, she moved her hips just a little against my fingers. I acted like I didn’t notice and soaped her ass, parting her cheeks with my thumbs to get in properly.

—You’re careful —she told me one afternoon, eyes closed, while I rinsed her hair—. For how clumsy you were as a kid, I wouldn’t have said that.

—I had a good teacher.

I held the spoon while she ate. I held her phone so she could read messages. I held the glass so she could drink water. I held the cigarette when, some nights, she allowed herself one at the living room window. Every gesture was a tiny excuse to get closer: hair in her face, a crumb on her lip, a drop on her chin. I wiped it with my thumb, and she, whether by accident or on purpose, would press it lightly with her mouth, sucking on it for a second before letting go. The first time she did that, I almost came in my pants. I went to the bathroom and jerked off standing up, leaning against the wall, thinking about her wet breasts in the shower, and came in four hard pulls onto the tiles.

***

The night it all happened, it was raining. We’d had dinner together on the couch, watching an old movie neither of us was really following. Marina fell asleep against my shoulder and I didn’t dare move. I watched the side of her face, her eyelashes, the little mole she had next to her left eye. I’d spent the whole day thinking about things I shouldn’t have been thinking. My cock had been hard since dinner, trapped against my jeans, and she was breathing against my neck as if she knew.

She woke up around one, slowly. She sat up, looked at me, and smiled as if she knew exactly what had been going through my head for those two hours.

—Take me to bed —she whispered—. And stay.

—Stay?

—Stay.

I lifted her off the couch, slid one arm behind her back, and guided her down the hallway. The room smelled of her cream and of the rain coming in through the half-open window. I sat her on the edge of the bed. She looked calm, determined, as if she’d been waiting for that moment for days.

—Take my clothes off —she asked—. I’m not putting them back on tonight.

I lifted her shirt with both hands. It came off over her head in one clean motion. She wasn’t wearing a bra underneath. Her breasts dropped heavy, white, with the nipples already hard. I stared and she didn’t cover herself or move her arms —she couldn’t—, she offered herself like that, with her plastered hands resting on her thighs. I pulled her leggings down her legs, tugging from the ankles, and then her panties. She was wet. The elastic had left a mark on her hip, and the smell of cunt hit me straight in the face.

—You too —she said.

I took off my shirt, my pants, my underwear. My cock sprang out, hard, pointing at her face. Marina bit her lip.

—It’s bigger than I thought —she said, and didn’t laugh.

I knelt in front of her, between her legs, my hands on either side of her waist. I felt the heat of her skin and knew there was no going back now. I kissed her knee. The inside of her thigh. I moved up slowly, with my mouth, and when I reached her cunt she threw her head back and let out something that wasn’t a word or a sigh, but both at once. She was shaved almost bare, with swollen, shiny lips. I opened her with my thumbs and ran my whole tongue over her, from bottom to top, all the way to her clit. Marina squeezed her thighs against my ears.

—Oh, my love. Oh, Diego. Oh, keep going, keep going, don’t stop.

I kept going. I sucked her clit, bit it slowly, licked it in circles until she started trembling. I pushed my tongue inside her, then two fingers, and with my mouth on her clit and my fingers moving inside, I found that spot that made her lift her hips off the bed.

—There, there, there, don’t move from there, you son of a bitch, don’t move.

She’d never called me a son of a bitch. She’d never said anything like that. My tongue cramped up and I didn’t care. I felt her come in my mouth, squeezing her thighs around my head, screaming something I couldn’t make out, with her plastered hands banging the mattress because she couldn’t do anything else with them. I licked up everything she gave me. It was sweet and salty, and I stayed there a little longer, my face pressed to her cunt, while the last tremors went through her.

I lifted her fully onto the bed. I laid her on her back, head on the pillow. I spread her legs with both hands and settled between them. I grabbed my cock and ran it along the lips of her cunt, soaking it from top to bottom. Marina lifted her hips, searching for me.

—Put it in already. Inside. All of it.

I drove into her in one thrust, all the way to the hilt. She arched her back and let out a long, hoarse moan that made my cock harden even more. She was hot inside, wet, tight. I stayed still for a second, my face pressed against hers, feeling her cunt contract around me.

—Mom —I said without meaning to.

—Say it again. Tell me while you fuck me.

I started moving slowly. I pulled almost all the way out and drove back in to the hilt. Marina couldn’t hold me with her hands, so she held me with everything else: her legs hooked behind my waist, her back arched, her teeth clenched on my shoulder when I pushed harder. Her inability to hold me, her forced surrender, made every thrust feel like a permission she had to keep giving me over and over. And she did. In my ears, in my throat, in my neck. She gave it to me all the time.

—Like that, my love, like that, fuck me hard, fuck your mom, don’t stop, don’t stop.

I grabbed one breast with my hand and squeezed it. I sucked the nipple, bit it. She pushed my head against her chest with her chin, because her hands wouldn’t obey her. I lifted her a little by the waist and drove my cock in from another angle, deeper. Marina screamed.

—Slower —she asked me at one point—. I don’t want it to end.

I did as she said. I pulled out, turned her carefully by the hips, and left her on her knees on the bed, ass up and chest against the mattress, face turned to the side, her plastered hands resting on either side of her head. I ran my hand down her back and lowered it to her ass. I spread her cheeks with my thumbs. I fucked her again like that, from behind, looking at her white back and her hair spilled everywhere. I took her slowly, with long thrusts, watching my cock go in and out of her cunt shining wet.

—Spit on my ass —she told me—. And put it in me.

I spat on her hole and rubbed my thumb over it, circling until it opened. Then I slid my thumb in up to the knuckle. Marina pressed her face into the mattress and moaned. I fucked her cunt with my cock and worked my thumb in her ass at the same rhythm. She moved backward, hunting for me, impaling herself, yelling things I had never heard her say to anyone.

—You’re mine. From today on, you’re mine. Say it.

—I’m yours, Mom.

I kept her like that, suspended between two breaths, for what felt like an hour. Then I changed positions again. I put her on top, sitting astride me, with her breasts hanging in my face and her plastered hands resting on my chest so she wouldn’t fall. She moved on her own, riding my cock up and down, biting her lip, looking down at me with narrowed eyes. I held her ass with both hands and helped her move. Every time she sank down, my cock slid all the way in and she closed her eyes.

—I’m going to come again —she said—. Come with me. Come inside. Inside, Diego, listen to me, inside.

When she finally came, she didn’t scream. She closed her eyes, bit her lower lip, and clenched her cunt around my cock as if she could, with that, keep me inside her forever. I drove myself in to the hilt, grabbed her by the hip, and came, stroke by stroke, inside her, my face buried in her neck. I felt her pulse around me while I filled her. She stayed pressed to my chest for a long while, with my cock still inside, breathing into my ear.

—Don’t take it out —she asked—. Not yet.

I didn’t take it out. I stayed like that, with her on top of me, until I went soft completely and slipped out, along with a warm stream of my cum that ran down her thigh. I ran my hand down her back. Marina gave a little laugh against my neck.

—Now yes. Now you’re the man of the house.

***

Three weeks passed before they took the plaster off. Three weeks in which we didn’t leave the house except when strictly necessary. Marina slept in my room. We ate together. We bathed together, and now under the shower it was she who knelt and sucked my cock with her eyes closed, unable to hold it with her hands, swallowing and letting the water run down her face. I fucked her against the tiles, against the kitchen counter, on the couch where we used to watch movies. She, helpless, submissive out of necessity, had discovered that she liked that forced surrender more than she’d thought. Being tied up, being used, being filled.

—When they take the plaster off —she told me one night, lying face down, her head turned toward me and my hand buried between her cheeks—, I don’t want anything to change. But you’re going to have to tie my hands for me, so I can keep feeling like this.

I told her yes. I would have said yes to anything.

We never heard from my father again. And for the first time in a long while, this house is silent, and that silence doesn’t weigh on me.