The Night My Mother Left the Door Ajar

My name is Mateo, I’m twenty-seven years old, and the story I’m going to tell happened two months ago, in the house where I grew up. My mother was always an attractive woman, the kind people stare at in the street even when she’s pushing fifty. She has long brown hair, a firm back from years of swimming, big breasts that any T-shirt fails to hide properly, and hips that really finished taking shape after the divorce. I had learned to look at her out of the corner of my eye since I entered my teens, and over the years that sideways glance became an unconfessable habit.

That Saturday I went over because she was complaining about a leaking faucet in the kitchen. My father had left seven years earlier and, since then, the small repairs had fallen to me. I arrived around seven with my toolbox, we ate pasta with tomato sauce together that she had made better than usual, and when we were finishing washing the dishes, she said, without looking at me:

—Are you staying to watch a movie? There’s an old one you wanted to see when you were a kid and I found it in a moving box.

I told her yes. I had no plans, no one waiting for me, and the idea of leaving at ten at night for an empty apartment didn’t appeal to me. We went upstairs together to the first floor. My room was still untouched, just as I’d left it when I went off to college, but she turned on the light in the master bedroom and beckoned me in.

—The tape player is here —she explained—. In your room you only have the computer.

The room smelled of the hand cream she’d always used, of something lavender, of clean sheets. My mother knelt in front of a stack of boxes beside the wardrobe and started pulling out tapes. She was wearing a cotton robe, white with small blue flowers, tied in a loose knot at the waist. When she leaned forward, the robe opened in front and I saw the beginning of her breasts, held up by a cream-colored bra.

I looked away at once, but it was already too late. I knew she had seen me look. I knew because she took two seconds longer than necessary to stand up, because when she did she slowly adjusted the knot of her robe, because when she turned back to me there was a small smile at the corner of her lips.

—This one —she said, holding up the tape—. You used to drive yourself crazy over it when you were twenty-one.

I don’t remember which one it was. I nodded, sat on the edge of the bed, and she put the tape into the player. Then she lay down beside me, on top of the spread, her back against the headboard.

The film started. It was an adventure movie, nothing erotic, but a few minutes in there was a scene in a cabin, a woman and a man, her unbuttoning his shirt. I felt my pulse jump to my throat. My mother didn’t move. Only, at one point, she raised one knee and let it fall to one side, opening her thighs just a little beneath the robe.

I looked at the ceiling. Then at the television. Then, by mistake, at her face.

—Do I make you nervous? —she asked me, quietly, without smiling this time.

—No. Why would you make me nervous?

She laughed through her nose, without humor. Then she turned her head and looked straight at me.

—Mateo, for months now you’ve been looking at me in a way that isn’t the way a son looks. You think I don’t notice?

I thought about denying it. I couldn’t. I dropped my eyes to my hands, felt the heat rise into my face, and stayed silent.

—You don’t have to apologize —she said, still looking at me—. I’m not going to pretend I’m not flattered.

I stood up. I told her I was going to the bathroom. I closed the door behind me, braced myself on the sink, and looked at myself in the mirror. My heart was pounding as if I’d run up the stairs. My cock was already half hard against the zipper of my pants and the bulge was so obvious I couldn’t go back into the room like that. I turned on the shower more out of reflex than need, stepped under the warm water, and tried to think clearly. Thinking clearly was the last thing I did that night.

When I got out, I had wrapped myself in a white towel, tied at the waist. I meant to walk back to my old room, get dressed, and say goodnight calmly. But when I opened the bathroom door, she was there, standing in the hallway, the light behind her off and the bathroom light barely lighting her up.

She had untied her robe. She was holding it closed with one hand, no knot.

—I want you to tell me to go away, and I’ll go —she said, in a softer tone than I expected—. If you keep quiet, this happens.

I was going to say it. The words were already formed on my tongue. They didn’t come out.

She let her hand fall. The robe opened. She was still wearing the cream bra and matching panties, simple, no lace, no theater. The skin of her stomach, lighter than the skin of her chest, rose and fell with her breathing. I didn’t move. She came closer, slowly, and placed an open hand on my bare chest, right below the collarbone. Her fingers were cold. Her other hand came down without warning and squeezed me over the towel, grabbing my hard cock through the fabric. A low moan escaped me. She smiled, just barely.

—You decide —she said, not letting go.

I kissed her. I kissed her like I had never kissed anyone, not because she was her, but because I had thirty years of looking at her packed behind my teeth and I didn’t know where to put it. She kissed me back slowly, firmly, unhurriedly, sliding her tongue between my lips with calculated slowness. I felt her other hand yank the towel down in a single pull. The towel dropped to the floor between our feet. She looked down, saw my cock fully hard, and swallowed.

—My God, Mateo —she murmured, and took me in her cold fingers, closing them around the shaft—. You know exactly what you’re doing.

She started jerking me right there, in the hallway, her back against the bathroom doorframe. She moved her hand up and down, slowly, squeezing when she reached the head, her thumb brushing over the already wet tip. I tore open her bra and took her breasts in both hands. They were warm, heavy, the dark nipples already hard. I bent down and sucked one, tugging with my teeth, and she let out a long, guttural moan that echoed down the empty hallway.

—To bed —she gasped—. Let’s go to bed, I can’t stand it.

***

We made our way together, stumbling over the hallway rug, to the bedroom. We fell onto the bed without breaking apart. She finished taking off the bra that was already hanging loose, and let me see her fully. Her breasts sagged a little with the weight of the years, but they were huge, round, with dark, hard nipples. I ran my tongue over one and heard a sound escape her throat I had never heard from anyone. I bit the other, sucking it all the way to the areola, and she arched her back to press them closer to my face.

—It’s been a long time —she said, almost breathless—. It’s been a long time since anyone touched me like that. Seven years, Mateo. Seven fucking years.

I asked if she was sure. She grabbed my face with both hands.

—Mateo, if you stop now, I’ll die.

I pulled her panties down her legs slowly, watching the cotton cling to her already soaked slit. When I got them all the way off, I brought them to my face without thinking and smelled them. She laughed, embarrassed, and covered her eyes with her forearm.

—You’re crazy.

—You’re dripping, Mom.

The word slipped out, and I saw her shiver beneath me. I kissed her stomach, then lower, on the shaved mound with a thin strip left, and went lower still, until I put my face between her legs. She spread them, not like in movies, but shyly at first, bending her knees and opening them only a little. I spread them more with my hands, gripping her thighs, and stayed there looking at her open cunt, shiny, with swollen lips and the clit peeking out between them.

I ran my tongue over it all the way, from bottom to top, and she screamed. Then I burrowed in there, mercilessly, sucking her clit and working it between my lips while I drove two fingers into her soaked cunt. She was very wet. My fingers slid in on their own, searching for the spot inside, while my tongue gave the clit no respite. I heard her cry a little as I lapped at her, not from sadness, but from something I can’t name, a mixture of relief and shame, and I wanted to comfort her with my mouth, make her forget all the years she had gotten used to not asking for anything for herself.

—Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop —she repeated, both hands in my hair—. Mateo, son, don’t stop, please.

When she came, she clamped my hair so hard I thought she was going to tear out a handful. Her hips lifted off the bed and I felt her cunt tighten around my fingers like a fist, throbbing deep inside. She came with a shout, without caring, so hard she covered my mouth with her other hand halfway through her orgasm, as if she had just remembered we were in a house with neighbors. She stayed still for a few seconds, panting, her legs still trembling on either side of my head. Then she pulled me up.

—My turn now —she murmured, her voice rough—. Let me see you.

She pushed me until I was lying on my back. She settled between my legs, looked at my hard cock pressed against my stomach, and smiled with something like pride.

—It’s the first one I’ve seen in seven years —she said—. And it belongs to my son.

She took me in her mouth slowly, looking up at me from below, as if she wanted to memorize my face. She took my whole cock into her mouth, all the way to the back, until I felt it hit her throat, and came back up slowly, dragging her lips along me. Her tongue circled the head every time she rose. With one hand she caressed my balls, squeezing them just slightly, and with the other she held on to her hair behind her neck so I could see her well. I closed my eyes. It was too much: the image, the idea, the sound, the wet noise of my mother’s mouth working my cock. I told her to stop, that I didn’t want to come yet, and she obeyed, though she pulled my cock out of her mouth with a slow kiss on the tip.

She sat up, straddled me, and with one hand grabbed my cock and guided it to her cunt. She sank down slowly, centimeter by centimeter, biting her lower lip. I felt her open around me, tight, hot, her cunt soaking me to the base.

—Slowly, Mateo —she begged, her eyes closed—. It’s been years, I already told you. You’re going to split me in two.

I stayed still beneath her, letting her choose the pace. She moved with her eyes shut, her hands braced on my chest, her breasts swaying over my face. She started going up and down slowly, sitting all the way down and rising again, my cock sliding out and back in each time, shining with her juices. Every so often she opened her eyes, looked at me for an instant, and closed them again, as if she needed to confirm it was me and, at the same time, couldn’t stand it. I grabbed her tits with both hands, squeezing them, pinching her nipples, and she began to move faster, riding me with her legs open on either side of my hips.

—Say something dirty to me —I asked, without thinking—. Tell me what I am.

She opened her eyes and looked at me. She sped up.

—You’re my son —she said, very low, her voice breaking—. You’re my son and you’re fucking me. And I don’t want you to stop. God, don’t stop.

I felt everything tighten. She noticed and eased the rhythm, smiling with her mouth open.

—Not yet, not yet —she whispered.

After a while she leaned over my body, kissed me long and deep, pushing her tongue, dirty with me, into my mouth, and asked me, very quietly, to turn her over. I turned her carefully. I put her on her knees on the mattress, breasts hanging, hands on the headboard. I kissed her back from the nape of her neck to her waist, running down her spine, and bit one ass cheek before settling behind her. She lifted her hips and arched her back, offering herself. I took hold of my cock and ran it up and down her soaked lips before burying myself in her from behind with one thrust that made her moan into the pillow.

I gripped her by the sides, then her hips, and started fucking her, slowly at first, then harder, my hands dug into the soft skin of her hips. Every time I thrust in, her tits jerked against the mattress and a muffled moan slipped out of her. My mother clamped the sheet between her teeth so she wouldn’t scream.

—Like that —she said into the pillow—. Right like that, don’t stop. Fuck me like that, Mateo, hard.

I grabbed her hair with one hand and pulled until her back arched. She moaned louder. With the other hand I wrapped my arm around her waist and brought my fingers down to her clit, rubbing it while I penetrated her. I felt her cunt starting to clench around me again. She came a second time right there, her face buried in the pillow, gripping the sheet with both fists, while I kept thrusting.

When I couldn’t take it anymore, I told her I was going to finish. She sprang upright, turned on her knees, and brought me to her mouth with both hands, taking my own wet cock in her hand. She sucked me hungrily, her cheeks hollowing, staring at me fixedly. She jerked me with her hand what her mouth couldn’t take. I closed my eyes when I came. I felt the first spurt hit the back of her throat and she closed her lips tightly around the shaft, sucking, not wasting a drop. I felt her swallow, once, twice, and then rest her forehead against my stomach, still breathing hard, with a thread of semen slipping from the corner of her lips.

***

When we were done, we were both soaked. I let myself fall beside her, on my back, my heart thundering in my ears. She settled against my shoulder, still breathing hard, and threw one leg over me. I felt her wet cunt against my thigh.

—Don’t say anything —she asked.

—I wasn’t going to say anything.

We stayed like that for a long time. The movie had ended and the screen showed the player’s blue menu, repeating a fragment of music on a loop. No one got up to turn it off.

At four in the morning, she propped herself on one elbow and looked at me for a long time in the dim light. She brushed the hair off my forehead with a hand that no longer trembled.

—Mateo, what happened tonight can’t be undone —she said—. But I’m not going to ask you to pretend it didn’t happen. Understand?

I told her yes. I asked if she regretted it. She thought about it for a moment.

—Tomorrow, when I see the light, maybe I will —she admitted—. Tonight, no.

Then she lay back against my shoulder. I felt her fall asleep without effort, like a woman who hadn’t truly slept in years.

I left before dawn, when it was still dark. I covered her with the sheet, kissed her temple, which she never felt, and went down the stairs barefoot, carrying my shoes in my hand. I didn’t want to wake her. Not out of shame, but because I didn’t know what face to make when she opened her eyes.

I went back to my apartment, sat in the kitchen with a glass of water, and watched the sky brighten through the window. I didn’t feel guilty. Nor euphoric. I felt something stranger and harder to bear: the certainty that once that door had been opened, it would never close again. And the even more uncomfortable suspicion that neither of us wanted it to close.