My name is Mary Ellis. I'm 39 years old and live in Lombard, Illinois, just outside Chicago. I have brown hair and brown eyes and stand 5'8" with a slender frame. I work as a marketing executive for a firm based in the Loop and split my time working from home and in-office. I'm an avid reader, a P90X junkie, a devoted baker, and a member of Sacred Realm Unitarian Universalist Church a town over in Addison. I live, for all accounts, a good and happy life.
I also have a 19-year-old son who is my entire world.
His name is Tom and he is an absolute dream of a human being. Ever since he was little, he and I have been thick as thieves and he has always gone out of his way to show that he loves me and make me feel appreciated. His father - a man named Greg Conrad - left us only three months after Tom was born. He claimed that I had cheated on him and that Tom wasn't his child, with absolutely no evidence. Regardless, he abandoned us and left for Santa Barbara with his female co-worker, leaving me and Tom alone.
I was lucky that my family - my parents Fred and Linda, my sister Tawny, my uncles and aunts and cousins, not to mention my church family - all pitched in to help out, whether it was through giving us money, offering to babysit, writing letters of recommendation to get Tom into good schools, et cetera. Greg had tried to destroy us but his actions only made us stronger.
Tom had always been a stellar student and a gifted athlete, playing for his high school basketball team and often joining me for daily workouts. However, he realized that like his mom, his main passion was the written word, and after graduating high school, he enrolled in DePaul University's Communications program. I would have been proud of him no matter his career choice, but it also gave me an extra sense of joy that he chose to follow in my footsteps.
Needless to say, he and I are incredibly close. We love having movie nights on the couch, going to church events, embarking on weekend adventures in the city, anything and everything, as long as we're together. As a teenager, he taught himself how to cook so on days I had to work in the office, he would make dinner for the two of us and have a glass of wine poured for me. He truly is a one of a kind young man who makes his devotion to his mom very well known.
And yet, him and I being so close has inadvertently caused a bit of a problem. Ever since Tom turned 18, I started seeing him differently. He was still my amazing son, don't get me wrong, but between his maturity, intelligence, kindness, and the fact that he was in really good physical shape, I began to also see him as an incredibly attractive young man. The way he smiled at me, the way he took care of me, the way he would unashamedly hold my hand whenever we went out in public, coupled with the fact that he was just objectively very handsome, made me start to develop feelings for him that transcended the typical mother-son relationship.
A few weeks ago, I began fantasizing about the two of us together. At night, I would lay awake and touch myself thinking of Tom holding me in his strong arms and kissing me, caressing me, even making love to me. At first, I felt ashamed and embarrassed, but I justified it by telling myself that these were just fantasies, and that as long as that they remained in my head, nothing was wrong.
And so my night-time masturbation sessions with Tom at the forefront of my mind became a nightly thing. Sometimes I would even sneak off to the bathroom at work and fuck myself imagining Tom's face between my legs and his hands running all over my body. In short, I was beginning to fall for my son and I had no idea what to do about it. I had considered talking to a therapist but I was afraid that they'd kick me out of the session for admitting such a thing. I have an open-minded liberal church community but still, telling any of my friends that I wanted my son to be my lover was simply out of the question. It seemed like I had no recourse aside from just fantasizing about someone I could never have.
One night, as I was sitting on the coufh preparing some social media content for one of my clients, Tom approached me. "Mom, can I talk to you about something?"
I immediately closed my laptop. "Yes, sweetie, of course you can," I said, patting the couch cushion next to me. Tom sat down and sighed. He clearly had something weighing on him and I was going to do whatever I could to help him through it. "What's going on?"
Tom looked down at his shoes and then at the ceiling, tapping his fingers together as if in a state of anxiety. Finally, he spoke. "Mom, there's someone I really like and I have no idea what to say to her."
I'm not going to lie, my heart sank a little when he told me this. Tom had been on a few dates in high school, but for some reason, having a girlfriend never interested him much. This was more than fine by me, because it just meant more time to spend with my favorite person in the world. So hearing him say that he had feelings for someone, especially after all the fantasies I had been having, made me both happy for him and also a little sad. Regardless, I put my own selfish wants aside and was going to help my son however he needed me.
"Baby, that's wonderful," I said. "What's she like?"
He laughed softly. "She's...incredible. There's literally no one like her. She's smart, she's funny, she's as kind and caring as can possibly be. She's perfect, there's no other way to say it."
"Oh, wow," I replied, feeling more than a little jealous but still willing to be there for him. "She sounds wonderful."
"She really is. I just don't know how to tell her how I feel."
"Well, honey, I would just be open and honest with her. Tell her what you told me. Express what's on your heart, and who knows? She may just feel the same way about you. Frankly, she'd be crazy not to."
"So, I should just be upfront about how I feel?"
"Absolutely," I said.
"Okay," he said with another sigh. He turned to face me and took my hand in his. I glanced down, confused as to what was going on. "Mom?"
"Yes, dear?"
"Mom..." he said, looking me in the eyes. "I'm in love with you."
A wave of disbelief at the words I just heard washed over me. I literally couldn't believe what Tom had just said. I blinked a few times, letting his words register, but still unsure I heard him correctly. "You're...what?"
"I am so deeply, unthinkably, stupidly in love with you. I always have been. I just didn't fully realize it until recently. Mom, you are the single best person I know. You're beyond brilliant, you're kind and you're generous, you make me laugh, you inspire me, you make me feel so loved and appreciated and taken care of."
He stroked the back of my hand. "And you're so, so beautiful. Inside and out. It's honestly ridiculous how gorgeous you are. I've always thought you were the most beautiful woman in the world. I...I think about us all the time, about how much I want to be with you, to be your man. To give you the love and devotion and adoration that you deserve. I fantasize about what it would be like to kiss your lips, to wrap you in my arms, to...to do lots of things together."
He scooted closer to me, still holding my hand. "Mom, I want to be with you. I don't just want you physically, I want your heart and soul. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to wake up every day with your face as the first thing I see. I love you. I love you with every fiber of my being."
I sat there and let what Tom said sink in. I was in absolute shock. My son, my beautiful, amazing son, wanted me just as much as I wanted him. This felt like it should be a dream, but this was reality. The man I loved actually loved me back!
"I know what I said is a lot to take in," he said, letting go of my hand. "And if I've crossed a line, I am truly sorry. If I've made things really uncomfortable between the two of us, I can move out. I can find my own apartment and be out of here by the end of the month if you -"
"NO!" I yelled, grabbing his hand, holding on for dear life. I wasn't about to lose my everything. "Baby, promise me you won't move out. Please, it would absolutely devastate me. Just, please promise me you won't leave."'
