What My Son Sold About Me to His Friends

My name is Renata and I’m forty-three years old. I’m white, curvy, with a chest that always drew more attention than I ever wanted to admit. I’ve been married to Damián for twenty-two years, an businessman who gave me a comfortable life, and together we raised Bruno, who is nineteen today. What I’m going to tell you happened three years ago, when I still hadn’t turned forty and was going through that stage when a woman looks at herself in the mirror and no longer recognizes who she sees.

I was still holding up well, I knew that much. But knowing it did me no good when no one told me so. Damián was absorbed in the purchase of another company: paperwork, lawyers, meetings that dragged on until dawn. He came home exhausted, collapsed into bed, and didn’t even look at me. I felt invisible. I wanted to feel desired, I wanted someone to look at me the way a woman is looked at and not like a piece of furniture in the house.

It was a regular morning. Bruno at classes, Damián at the office, me alone with the silence. I started cleaning so I wouldn’t think, and went in to tidy my son’s room.

The trash basket was full of paper, and the air unmistakably smelled like sex. Well, he’s at that age, I thought, and almost laughed. But then curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to know what my son was entertaining himself with. His laptop was open on the desk.

I know it was wrong. I did it anyway.

I opened the browser history. There were pages I expected at his age, but the video titles left me breathless: mother and son, over and over. I stared at the screen with my heart pounding in my throat. Does my son feel something for me? No, impossible. I’m old, he would never look at me like that.

***

I should have closed the laptop right then and there. Instead I kept snooping, opening folders, until I found one that said “For Sale.” Inside were three subfolders, and each one had a name that chilled me:

Photos — ten.

Videos — twenty.

Underwear — forty.

I opened the photos and nearly fell to the floor. They were mine. My breasts peeking out of a neckline, my ass stuffed into some not-at-all provocative pants, stolen angles from the couch, from the kitchen, from the doorway. My own son was selling photos of me.

The first feeling was shock. The second was an idea that embarrassed me the moment I formed it: if he’s selling them, it’s because someone is paying to see me. His friends think his mother is worth the money.

I don’t know when indignation turned into something else. I only know that I started feeling heat in my chest, a tingling sensation that hadn’t visited me in years. At last, after months of feeling like a ghost, someone desired me. Several someones, actually. And they were young.

I looked at the photos with different eyes and realized something else: I dressed like a dull old lady, in clothes that did nothing for me. If Bruno was going to photograph me, at least he should have good material. The thought crossed my mind before I could stop it, and I understood that, without saying a word, I had decided to let him keep going.

I checked the videos: me walking, me bending over, my breasts swaying while I cleaned. And the underwear was bras I had assumed were lost. They hadn’t been lost. He had taken them.

I shut everything down and went back to my room trembling. I was so turned on I didn’t think twice. I fingered myself on the bed until I was left without strength, biting the pillow, feeling like the most desired woman in the world for the first time in years.

***

It was early. Bruno wouldn’t be back for hours. I got dressed up and went to the mall determined to start over.

I bought thongs, lace sets, cropped blouses, sheer blouses, Lycra leggings, tiny shorts, skirts that ended where scandal began, tight dresses, and a pajama that was barely a pajama at all. I carried the bags with a smile that could barely fit on my face. I came back, got lunch ready, and stepped into the shower.

I didn’t want to overdo it all at once. I chose something only a little more daring than usual, just enough for the change to be noticeable without raising suspicion. I was cooking when Bruno walked in and froze in the doorway, staring at me.

—Hi, sweetheart. Why are you standing there like that?

—Wow, Mom. You look really beautiful.

—Really? I was bored and went shopping. Do you like it?

—Yeah. You look much better than in the other clothes. Those didn’t suit you.

—I thought the same. I made a little change to feel prettier. Thanks for noticing, honey.

—You’re welcome, ma.

I turned back to keep cooking. Bruno sat down in front of me, at the kitchen island that doubled as a dining table, and took out his phone. I could feel him aiming it at me. I acted distracted, moving just a bit more than necessary, letting the neckline do its work. When he got up to leave, I saw the bulge straining his pants. I got him aroused. And I love it.

***

That same afternoon I remembered I hadn’t finished cleaning. I changed into something even shorter and went out with the cloth in my hand. Bruno, hearing me, appeared on the sofa with his phone, pretending to be uninterested as always.

Before, that gesture meant nothing to me. Now I knew exactly what he was doing, and that lit me up inside. So I put on a show. I stretched, bent over from the front and from behind, shook my chest for any excuse at all, got down on all fours to clean the bottom of the furniture. All so my son could capture every angle. By the time I was done I was sweaty and hot, and he had red cheeks.

I showered again, put on something comfortable, and made coffee. Bruno likes it with milk. We sat down to chat and he asked me to help him open envelopes with cards, that collector hobby he’d had since he was little. Sometimes we did it together, so it didn’t seem strange to me.

We went to his room. I sat at his desk, glanced at the laptop, and thought about his “business.” Quite the businessman, like his father. The idea, far from bothering me, filled me with pride. I lowered my neckline a little and started opening envelopes while he stood beside me, holding his phone.

—Mom, a question. Why don’t you take photos of yourself?

—I don’t know, I used to do it a lot. But the older I get, the less I feel like it.

—You’re not old. You’re really pretty. In fact, you’re the prettiest mother of anyone in my class.

—Don’t lie —I laughed, though inside I was melting.

—I’m serious. You should take photos.

—I would, but my phone is old. Since I hardly use it, I never changed it.

—I’ll lend you mine. Then I’ll send them to you.

—Really, sweetheart?

—Of course, ma.

—How sweet. Okay, let me fix myself up a bit.

I touched up my makeup, let my hair down, and went back. He gave me his phone and I took several photos, making sure the neckline looked good. I gave him good material and handed it back, telling him to keep the ones he liked best. I was handing him, with my own hands, what he sold in secret.

That night Damián came home, exhausted, without even noticing how I was dressed. I wanted him to tell me I looked sexy. He said nothing. We had dinner, he fell asleep like a stone, and I understood that I was going to look for that recognition somewhere else.

***

The days went by and my clothes grew more and more revealing. I stopped wearing a bra, lived in cropped and low-cut blouses, in tiny shorts and skirts that barely covered anything. Bruno never stopped photographing me: selfies beside me while we opened envelopes, shots while I cooked, photos that sometimes I even sent him myself as if it were an innocent game between mother and son.

One morning, with him in class, I opened the laptop again. The photo folder had grown enormously. In some I looked vulgar; in all of them, tremendously desirable. He had put together a spreadsheet to keep track of the sales, neat and meticulous, like a real business. He was selling five times more than at the beginning. The underwear barely appeared anymore, because I had stopped wearing it and I would have noticed if any went missing.

Seeing those numbers sent my self-esteem soaring. I felt beautiful, powerful, alive. But I wanted more. I wanted to feel even more desired, and a crazy idea crossed my mind that I tried to erase without success.

I shut the laptop, went to my room, stripped in front of the mirror, and started taking photos of myself. My breasts, my entire body, nothing covering it. When I had the ones I wanted, I saved them in a separate folder in my gallery, put on a lace set, and took a few more.

***

A while later I prepared lunch and left the phone on the island, right where Bruno sits when he gets home. As soon as he arrived, he greeted me and sat down to chat with me.

—Honey, I took some photos. Go into my gallery and mark the ones you like.

—Yes, ma.

He took the phone, opened the gallery, and his eyes went wide. I kept cooking, pretending not to notice anything, feeling the heat rise up my neck.

—I marked them already, ma. I’m going to change —he said, and got up almost abruptly.

When he left, I checked the phone. He had deleted our chat after sending over the images, so I wouldn’t notice. My plan had worked perfectly.

I let a week go by. With Bruno in class, I opened his spreadsheet again. There were two new boxes. One said “exclusive photos,” and those were selling, and at high prices. Without a doubt he was his father’s son, a business predator. The other box left me breathless: “entry to the house to watch.”

My son wanted to bring in clients. He wanted someone to pay to come and see his mother putting on a live show.

I should have been scandalized. Instead I felt that same tingling sensation as always, multiplied. Would someone pay to see me for real? I shut the laptop and locked myself in my room to touch myself just imagining it, wishing that moment would come as soon as possible.

I didn’t have to wait long.

That same afternoon, while I was preparing lunch, Bruno came home from class. But he didn’t come alone. He brought one of his friends, a boy his age who looked me up and down the moment he walked through the door. A jolt ran through my entire body. That boy had paid to come and see me.

But that’s another story.