Like Mother Like Son 3

She angrily pulled back her dark hair, grinding her teeth as her long fingers yanked at wayward strands in pure annoyance. He was insufferable; it was like dealing with a toddler all over again. She straightened her clothes in the mirror with a jerky motion, before storming out of her bedroom and into the hall, where the voices of her husband and son carried up the staircase from the floor below.

They were arguing, as she had expected. From the sound of it, the topic was the same as it had been when she had gone upstairs to get changed. She had been planning on spending the day out alone, as she often did on Sundays. David, her husband, was being surprisingly firm for once, refusing to give into their son's demands. Given the topic however, it was not surprising.

"I hate it." Gabriel said flatly. "I'm not going." His lips thinned almost imperceptibly as his eyes flicked to his mother, who was coming down the staircase.

"Do we really need to have this argument again?" David was exasperated, his voice quiet and unobtrusive even in anger. It was classic David.

"I said I'm not going. I'm 19, I think I'm old enough to make the choice. I don't need to sit around listening to a bunch of pederasts go on about the sex they're never going to have," Gabriel countered belligerently, eyes narrowed on his mother. "Besides, she never goes."

David sighed loudly, shaking his head. "We're not discussing this."

"We just did," the teen said with a smirk, "and I'm sorry you can't come up with an argument that can persuade me. I hate it, I've always hated it, and I'm not going."

Suddenly, a vice-like grip was on Gabriel's arm, and he was staring into the dark, striking eyes of his mother. Usually children were supposed to have a healthy respect for their fathers, if not some fear, but he couldn't think back to a day when that had held true for him. The person he had always been wary of, was his mother. It was obvious even to outsiders that she had the backbone and made the decisions. She was hardened emotionally in a way that Gabriel had learned from a young age wasn't all that usual in a woman. She was cold and unyielding, and there was never a time when she had been the sort to coddle him or lavish attention on him. From the very start of their relationship, he had hated her with a passion so intense that it seemed to burn at his insides from the sight of her.

His father had been softer, and the source of hugs and kisses and bedtime stories, but within a few years, much like his mother, Gabriel had begun to distance himself from such attention. He had eventually found it to be clingy and tiresome, and had regressed further and further into a shell of withdrawal. He could distinctly remember as a young child, purposefully knocking a carafe of boiling coffee onto his mother's lap, a day after she had backhanded him hard enough for his chubby, seven year-old cheek to sting painfully. He had spent several years of his childhood intentionally trying to harm her, hating her for the way she couldn't seem to care for him the way a mother should.

She had certainly never neglected him; he had never wanted for anything, but she had never held him or brushed his hair back from his face, or cheered him on at soccer. In fact, she had never shown up for any of his games. She had laughed at him, and told him that he was stupid for pursuing such pointless things. She had handed him a knife one day and not said a word. Once a year she had given him a knife on his birthday, until he had amassed a large collection. He had forgotten about soccer, and moved onto rifles and any other weapons he could get his hands on, which had seemingly pleased her, though she had never offered any words of praise to confirm his suspicion. He had spent the majority of his life secretly trying to gain her acceptance, while simultaneously loathing her for the power she held over him.

"You're going," she ordered frostily, her long, painted fingernails cutting into the flesh of his upper arm.

"No," he said more quietly, losing the edge to his nerve. Her eyes were black and fathomless, reminding him of a nightmarish abyss. They were rarely graced with any emotion other than anger, a fact that had tormented him as a small child. Her lips were perfect, full and tinted slightly red. The corners of her mouth were pressed together, like she was clenching her jaw.

Without another word, she hauled him toward the doorway, even as he dragged his feet. She was stronger than she looked, but Gabriel didn't like to be towed around by anyone, and wrenched his arm free, glaring at her hatefully.

"Mommy, are you coming?" The youngest child had emerged from another room, looking on at the scene in confusion. She was dragging along her pink rabbit, whose fur was dingy and sticky with some kind of candy.

"You know I don't go to church, Izzy," she answered, her voice missing the darkened tinge it had held only a moment before.

"Mom doesn't go, but we have to," Gabriel said, rubbing at his throbbing arm.

"I like church!" Izzy exclaimed, twirling in her dress.

"Not all of us can afford to be as mindless as you," Gabriel intoned irritably, eyes still locked on his mother's.

"That will be enough of that," David said. "Get changed, you heard your mother. You're going." "Since when did you grow a dick?" Gabriel asked.

"Gabe---"

"If he wants to stay home, let him," his mother stated suddenly, eyes glinting disconcertingly. David closed his mouth, clearly not pleased with the sudden turn of events. Gabriel frowned and raised a dark eyebrow. "He can work on his homework," she added by way of explanation.

"I really think he should go," David, said again, though his tone wavered with uncertainty. He seemed to be quickly losing his ground, and true to form, he wasn't willing to give much by way of protest when his wife was involved.

"Just take Izzy. Once isn't going to kill him."

Twenty minutes later, Gabriel's father and sister were gone, much to his surprise, without him. His mother had disappeared upstairs again, and he had not questioned her. She had seemed irritated (not that that was anything new), and he had already gotten away with a freed up Sunday, which he was hardly willing to squander by questioning her judgment. He had been having the argument with his father for years, and the fact that he had finally won was certainly something to celebrate.

His dad and sister would probably be gone the entirety of the day because of Youth Group, and he figured his mother wouldn't stick around either. As a kid, he used to beg to go with her, but he had quickly grown out of that phase, only to watch her suspiciously as she gathered her things then left for hours on end to do who knows what.

Gabriel was toying with one of his knives, spinning it noisily on the marble tabletop. It scratched at the surface, its gleaming blade shimmering in the early morning sunlight that drifted in through the immense windows of the dining room. He had his homework in front of him, due only to his mother's insistence. He fought with her often, but rarely got away with as much as he wanted to. She had a way of forcing him into things, and it had been a source of resentment for a long time. She had taken away his knives before, and his videogames, and had once gone so far as to confiscate his laptop which he had never gotten back. He was reduced to using the school computers or his father's phone when he had the chance. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen a porno that wasn't the fuzzy, garbled trash recorded on an old VHS tape and left to rot in his Grandfather's garage. He sighed, palming the blade to study the crisp insignia on the hilt.

He'd been shocked the first time he noticed the brand. The blade had been in the upstairs office, displayed in a glass case along with a few other weapons, too far away for him to discern any real details. He had always thought all that stuff belonged to David, up until he was old enough to realize that his father didn't have any interest in guns or knives or anything that caused bodily harm. They were hers, and that had fascinated him. The blade had always been displayed in the upper case, too high up for him to ever reach at that age. Then one day, for no apparent reason, she had put the knife in his hand and told him it was his.

There was a perfect swastika on the hilt, resting in the clutches of a proud iron eagle. The blade itself was painfully thin and sharp, enough that touching it with his fingertip caused a bead of blood to emerge from his forefinger. He had been slightly disturbed when he had first learned of the blade's origins. Why would she have something of that nature? Did she really believe in that kind of thing?

Interestingly, she had never displayed any disgust with any particular group (aside from Christians, and he still questioned why she married a devout Catholic), and was notoriously indiscriminate in her ill-temperedness. She wrote books, which was fortunate, as it meant she didn't have to work in an office setting. When he was younger, she had been a secretary, and she had frequently come home in a dark mood. He remembered that his parents had fought frequently then, though it had never involved yelling. His mother would inflict the silent treatment, and any words she uttered were particularly cold. His dad had never been one to fight her outright, and would trail after her like a beaten dog begging for the most meager of scraps. It had sickened him then, and still did, the way David just bent to her as though he had no thoughts of his own. He's practically castrated, Gabriel thought dryly.

Strangely, Gabriel had spent his life being closer to his father, simply because the man was willing to indulge him in the things he liked, but that didn't stop Gabriel from hating the man's complacency and clinginess. As a teen, he had begun avoiding even his father, who now doted on Izzy, who was much more receptive to the attention than Gabriel had ever been. Izzy even attempted to win their mother's affection, which had angered him. The jealousy had come to a pinnacle when his mother started buying clothing and toys for her, something she had never done for him. Gabriel's father had always picked out and provided such things for him.

Eventually he had pushed Izzy down the staircase and broken her arm, and she was frightened enough of him that she had never told. His mother had watched him across the table that same night, and he had flinched under her intensity, his palms sweaty as he stared back, suddenly certain that she knew what he had done. He hadn't slept that night, curled in a fetal position, his body drenched in a cold sweat, his pajamas sticking to him like a second skin. He had never been so frightened of her. She hadn't even said anything, but that had only increased the terror he felt, as he imagined all the things she could possibly do to him. She had never really hurt him physically, besides a slap or a spanking, both of which had been scarier when he was threatened with them, than when they actually had happened.

He was pulled from his reverie as he heard her footsteps. She was light on her feet, but the old floorboards of the house gave her away. She was dressed impeccably as usual, and he was finally given the opportunity to admire her outfit without his father around to notice. Not that David ever noticed anything. She was wearing a pair of tight grey slacks that hugged the curves of her lower body in a way that made Gabriel swallow and thrum his fingers on the counter in distraction. His thoughts should have made him horrified, but unfortunately they were nothing new. He had long since grown accustomed to his strange feelings regarding his mother. He ignored the nagging voice in his head, refusing to filter his thoughts.

The pants were paired with a white dress shirt, which tapered at the waist in a way that was very complimentary. His eyes lingered a little too long when he realized she was wearing a black bra underneath. She was shrugging on a leather coat, the smooth lambskin one his father had bought for her a few years previous, which caused her white blouse to cling very provocatively to her chest. He caught a glimpse of black, lacy bra through the gap in the buttons.

She had a way about her that he had never fully understood. She was vain, but never flaunted her sexuality; everything was quietly confident. She had never worn a skirt or dress that he had seen, but she got her nails done regularly and kept her black hair styled and shining. It conflicted with everything else he knew about her. She was hateful of her own sex, which she had always made plainly obvious. He had heard her call them 'the weaker sex', which had made him frown even as a child. Yet she frequently bought girlish things for his sister Izzy, never once saying a word about it, even though she had made it clear before that she detested the focus on beauty instead of strength.

His mother did all these things, which seemed outright hypocritical to him. She went to the gym regularly, she kept a collection of Nazi paraphernalia in the office, and there was the basement, which no one was allowed into. She kept secrets, that much was obvious, but he was still clueless as to what her motivation was behind it.

"I'm going out," she said, buttoning her coat. "I'll be back in a few hours. Keep the door locked." She eyed the stack of binders and papers, letting out a sigh. "I told you to work on that."

"I am," he claimed, leaning back on the barstool so that it was balancing on two legs. He was grinning at her.

Gabriel was wearing his usual: the tight jeans that the kids seemed to wear, and the t-shirt that was probably a size too small and revealed a sliver of his lower stomach. He was far too thin, boarding on lanky, and the clothing only emphasized it. She would never understand youth fashion, and boys dressing like girls, with their bodies nearly on display. She allowed him to do as he wished, though she had often commented on his hair, which was on the long side and perpetually seemed to hang in his eyes. They had a name for the style, but it was lost to her. It would be over in a few years and he would move onto something else, she was sure.

"Make sure it's done."

A while later, he was no farther on his work, having switched on the TV to watch whatever crap was on. His hand kept traveling down his pants, but he couldn't seem to get in the mood while that bitch Martha was going on about something or other in her weird, manly voice. No, it was too strange. He tried switching channels, but that didn't seem to help. He was half hard, trying to think about anything other than what kept coming to mind. Each time he closed his eyes, he was greeted by the vision of his mother's lovely backside in the grey dress pants she had had on. She had always been his favorite fantasy, something that he had been conflicted about since it had first started to happen.

He hated her. He knew he did. He resented her. She was apathetic and far too bossy for his liking, and she had never even attempted to be a mother to him, but yet the minute Izzy was born, she had at least acknowledged the child's existence. All he could remember of her from his childhood, was that she had instilled in him from the very start that she wasn't to be touched physically or psychologically. There were to be no hugs, no handholding, none of it, and maybe that was what had made her such a tantalizing target of his sexual fantasies. Maybe that was what had twisted his hate into something far more sinister.

He wasn't sure when it had happened, but it had. The shame had been so strong that it had become a source of self-loathing. He could think of nothing more traitorous than the strange mix of arousal and hate that his mother elicited from him. After all the years of neglecting him, the biting words, the blatant apathy toward his very existence, how could he possibly come to desire such a cruel-hearted person? How could such intense disgust morph into any kind of sexual interest? He still couldn't reason himself through it, even after ages of contemplating it. He had struggled over it for so long that it seemed pointless to fight anymore.

There was no explanation except that he was her son, and like her, there was a part of him that was wretched and starved of sunlight. That part of him craved her, in any way she was willing to give herself to him. Because she would never consent to showing him any kind of affection, he had to resort to imagining it. Why it had to be sex, he wasn't sure, but attention was attention, and the thought of her was stronger than anyone else.

Gabriel got up from the stool, wandering off to his room to get the book. He always used the same one. She'd done it under a penname, and he had often wanted to ask her if she was ashamed of what she had written. It was most definitely erotic, if not downright pornographic. He had found the title in her office, buried behind some other books she had published, like a dirty secret. He had wanted to take her copy, but he knew she was observant, and he had worried that she would discover that it had disappeared. He had resorted to ordering it off the internet so he could read it in its entirety.

It was full of sodomy and torture, all of which he had found strangely to his liking. The fact that she had written it had only increased his arousal. He had often wondered if she had sat at her desk, typing and fingering herself as she wrote it. It was a picture that had the instant effect of making his cock twitch rebelliously in his jeans. He found his tattered copy, deciding on the bathroom, where he could prop it up on the sink.

The tile was cold on Gabriel's feet as he thumbed through the book, trying to decide on which part he wanted to use. The pages were dog-eared from years ago, but over time he had learned the page numbers by heart. He started to read, his fingers automatically working at the button of his dark jeans. He sighed when he palmed his length, his thumb running over the slit, which was already beading with liquid from his anticipation. It wasn't difficult to get started, his mind walking an all too familiar path. The characters would change, and suddenly it would be him over his mother. He'd rub himself up and down between her ample cheeks teasingly, and she would already be growing impatient. Then he would lick a finger and give her a little preview, before pushing the head of his cock against her resistant little opening.

He started pulling his shirt off, hands running down his stomach and chest. He turned a page, though the text was starting to disappear on him as his imagination began to take over. He was soon thrusting into his own hand with wild abandon, his face dampening from exertion and the heat of the tiny room as midday approached, glaring through the bathroom window and making him squint down at the book.

The bang was resounding enough that he flinched, cock in hand. His pants were bundled around his calves, too tight to slide down to his ankles. His shirt was discarded in a ball on the floor. He was breathing in short gasps, having gotten to the part where the lusty king takes the shy, unwilling princess, who is engaged to his son. The air from the other room was blessedly cool on his heated skin, but couldn't compare to the icy gaze of his mother, who was standing in the doorway, one long fingered hand propped against the door, having forced it open somewhat violently. It hadn't been locked, Gabriel realized offhandedly. He never locked it, but she had torn it open anyway as she always did, because she seemed to believe that every room was hers to invade.

He should have withered under her dark eyes, but his hand couldn't stop furiously working at his erection. A smile graced his features automatically at her look of confusion, but it disappeared when the cold sweat of fear descended onto the back of his neck like a wet cloth at the true realization of what was happening. His mother seemed to take in the scene for a second, eyes flicking to his face then to his well-endowed cock, then to the book on the countertop, the spine of which was fully visible since it had fallen onto its side from Gabriel's surprise.