Where Loyalties Lie

Another prang of guilt struck her chest when she heard her son’s voice. Straightening up and stepping into the office proper, she let herself take a good look at him before speaking. Though it had only been a day since they last spoke, he seemed to have matured a great deal in that time. Perhaps it was the suit he was wearing, or the fine, dark hairs forming on his unshaven chin, or just that he was standing behind the desk, where Robert once stood, but he looked older, more worldly, and, dare she admit, handsome.

“Oh, Zack,” she finally said, soft and breathless, just seeing him knocking the wind from her lungs. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here so late. I just came for my…”

When she looked around herself, Zack thought that she was looking for an excuse until she picked up a bag from beside the door, a handbag that she carried around often. How long had that been there, he wondered, thinking of the many times he passed through that door today and never noticed it, his mind distracted by other problems and tasks. Glancing down at the screen, he saw the progress bar move, then, satisfied that it would continue unwatched, he walked around to the front of the desk and leaned back against it, hands in his pockets.

“You were here earlier?” He asked, creasing his brow as he tried to make sense of the events. “So, why didn’t you talk to me then? Lisa said you went by the cabin, and that you were heading here, but then I thought you never showed. I had to find out about the test results on the news like everyone else.”

He sounded irritated, she noted, as she rifled through the contents of her bag. Not that she blamed him, but she ignored his question, not quite ready to face the answer. Instead, she searched, until she found an envelope and tore it open. And it had been unopened, but still, she needed to see for herself the documents inside that said that Gregory was his father. Everything was there, untouched. It had been her assumption that whoever leaked the results had likely taken them from her bag, but that now seemed unlikely.

“Was anyone else in here all day?” she looked over at Zack again, waiting patiently still by the desk. “What about when you went out? Did you lock the door?”

Zack shook his head. “Answer my question first.”

Despite being with the company for only a day, she was amazed by how he already seemed to be taking to the principles of doing business, posturing and leveraging to get what he wanted. Which, unfortunately, made resisting him all the more difficult. It made her feel like a schoolgirl again, that nervous fluttering in her stomach, as she marveled and awed at this brilliant, good-looking young man. All she wanted to do was giggle and flick her hair and let him leave love bites all over her body. If only he wasn’t her son, if he wasn’t with Lisa, if…no, no matter what Heather said, it was wrong.

“You don’t know what you’re asking…you don’t really want…the answer to that is…it’s…” she started and stopped her reply, struggling to find the right words that wouldn’t give away her feelings. “It’s complicated.”

“Come on, Mom, what is it that you can’t tell me? I don’t think there’s anything left that could surprise me. I know about your cheating, about your high libido, I was even there when Dad kicked you out,” Zack listed, almost pleading. “I even saw you getting fucked in a cave, for fuck’s sake.”

“Language, Zack,” she admonished him. “I’d rather you didn’t talk about it in those terms. It’s not…appropriate.”

The truth was that hearing her son use the word ‘fuck’ in reference to her sent a heatwave rolling through her body, leaving her feeling flushed and horny.

“Well, what you two were doing wasn’t simply having sex,” Zack argued. Normally he would have let it go, but his bitterness made him press the issue. “That kind of intensity, that was fucking.”

“B-be that as it may, I-ahem-I’m still your mother-” The word caught in her throat, hypocrisy convicting her since she’d spent the better part of the day trying not to fantasize about the ways her son could ravage her body. “The truth is I was here earlier. I came to tell you about the results, but you were busy. With Heather.”

The last two words lingered in the air and Zack’s eyes widened, clearly catching the implication. Heather had only been in the office once that day, in the morning, when she propositioned Zack, offering to pair him up with his mother, securing her end of their deal. Hadn’t she even mentioned her own relationship with her dad? If his mother was there, just outside the door, then she knew everything. It was little surprise that she had run away and avoided him for most of the day; she was utterly ashamed and repulsed by him.

“Oh, shit. I have no idea what you must think of me, mum, but, I know it’s sick, and I have no intention of ever acting upon my feelings, I mean, desires.” He jolted upright from the desk. “It was just after you saw me at the clinic and it brought back all those thoughts about the cave, and then we got close while I was comforting you. The feelings were confusing, and then Heather was teasing me, but the deal, I never should have, I mean, I never expected it to actually…”

Monica raised a hand to quieten his rambling. “Zack, it’s not you that I’m disgusted with. It’s myself. That closeness you felt, I felt it too, and I’ve been just as confused. “

“You have?” Zack croaked out the words past the lump in his throat.

“Funny, I think it all started with Heather for me as well. She came to the clinic, looking for birth control, and she mentioned that you were being sexually active. It didn’t surprise me, I’ve suspected as much for some time, but there’s a difference between knowing something and having it confirmed to you. I found myself wondering what kind of lover you had grown into, if you were any good. Motherly concerns, I convinced myself. But you were just a young man, a beginner in terms of sexual experience, how could you possibly be ‘good’ yet.” She couldn’t look at him and instead stared at the couch where Robert had fucked her a few nights prior. “So, then Kurt came to the clinic and I fucked him.”

“Wait, what?” A mix of emotions swelled up inside him as he took a step closer to his mother. Anger, for one, but not as outraged as he might have expected; warm and flushed from hearing his mom talk about her sexual thoughts about him, but also, mostly, just irritated that Kurt had fucked his mother first. “You fucked Kurt?”

“I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back, I was using him as a substitute for you. I mean, he wanted it for sure, and he couldn’t stop complimenting me, but he was young and inexperienced and convinced myself that if he wasn’t great, it would confirm to me that sex with you wouldn’t be that good either. I never dared ask myself why it mattered, I didn’t want to open that box. But then Kurt was good. Great even.” Her body felt like it was on fire as she remembered climaxing so loudly that she was sure that the whole clinic had heard. “I made an excuse to come to the cabin under some pretext, but the whole time I was thinking of seeing you there, though I kept lying to myself, telling myself I was just a mother, looking out for her child.”

“But you didn’t find me, you found Robert” Zack remembered. At that time, he had been in the other room with Ashley and Lisa. Might things have been different if he wasn’t otherwise preoccupied?

“That’s right. That was a surprise, and it really did drag up a lot of old feelings. Though I resisted at first, it was a relationship that I could allow, if it distracted me from you. It was cheating and it was wrong, but not as wrong as what I could have been doing. And he fucked me so good, the best I’ve probably ever had,” Monica confessed, knowing she should have felt weird about talking to her son about the best sex in her life, but instead it was only making her more aroused. “I told myself that you couldn’t be that good. Maybe as good as Kurt, maybe better, but not better than Robert, and yet…”

“You’d been wrong before,” Zack finished the sentence, feeling so surreal, like the whole conversation was a dream. Maybe he’d just fallen asleep at the computer. He dug his fingers into his palm and swallowed hard when he felt the pain.

His mother just nodded, then continued. “Then you showed up at the clinic and told me that you saw me and Robert in the cave. I was afraid, partly because I’d been caught, partly because you might see me as some sex-craving slut, but mostly because it brought with it new thoughts and questions, like what you thought about me, and whether you liked what you saw. Of course, you were more interested in finding out if Robert was your father. Even while I told you everything, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. The connection I felt with Robert and the growing connection between us, imagining what your cock might look like as I described his, that energy I felt around Robert once, I now felt with you, feeling like myself again when we were together, even just sitting, talking.”

“Mum, I would never have thought of you as a sex-crazed slut,” Zack assured her, moving even closer to her, wanting to simply rush over and hug her, but worried it would scare her away now that she was finally opening up. “I just can’t believe I was so caught up in my own feelings that I didn’t notice.”

“Maybe I’m just good at hiding it. I did keep the affair from your father, though that’s obviously nothing to be proud of. Honestly, at times, I was even hiding my feelings from myself,” she admitted with a tinge of sadness. “Then, just as you had seen me, I saw you. Your…cock. I was practically salivating just looking at it, and I couldn’t stop looking at it, even though I tried to tell myself that a mother walking in on her son naked was normal, it happens, but the thoughts it gave me were anything but normal. If we had been alone, I don’t know what I would have done. But knowing that there was a whole clinic outside that room, that Zsofia and others knew that we were in there together, it was the only thing that kept me grounded. But nothing could stop me from thinking about it, all the way back home, until finally, your father left, and I was an emotional wreck. And there you were, holding me and we were alone. No one would ever have known.”

“Ha, I wonder what Heather would say if she knew she cockblocked us then,” Zack mused with a chuckle. “You were here this morning, so you know about Heather and…”

“Her father, yes,” Monica finished, confirming Zack’s suspicions. “I can’t really judge, considering everything I’ve just confessed to, and honestly, it’s not a surprise, considering the time I came to the cabin I found them acting rather…close.”

“Well, I don’t think anything had actually started at that point, even if Heather might have wanted it to. She pursued him and seduced him over the next few days. But I guess that’s the difference between them and us. They were both bold enough to take what that wanted,” Zack replied, taking another step towards his distraught mother.

“If I had my way, these feelings would never have come to the surface. They’d have stayed buried, dark desires and nothing more. Now they’re out there and nothing can take them back. But I thought you deserved to know why I didn’t tell you first-hand about the results,” Monica explained, noticing her son drawing ever closer but doing nothing to stop him. “Susan let it slip that she saw you and Lisa together. I just couldn’t handle another person talking about your cock. And then I came here, and Heather was tempting you with sex, offering to set you up with me. You have no idea just how close I was to running into this office and giving myself to you. But then I heard how committed you were to Lisa and I was ashamed. I was so caught up in my own wants and needs that I was almost ready to turn you into a cheater, again, just like me.”

“Mum,” he said firmly, finally close enough to grab her by the shoulders and turn her to face him. “I understand, okay. I get it. You don’t have to feel bad or worry. I don’t hate you. I love you, and there’s nothing that will ever change that. I love Lisa too, but, at the risk of sounding like a total mama’s boy, there’s no one that could ever come between you and me.”

For the first time, Monica looked up into her son’s face. A determined, confident smile adorned the lower half, while his bright blue eyes shone back at her, underlining the conviction of every word he said. It was just as Heather had told her, and as she knew in her heart of hearts, that her son wouldn’t hold her feelings against her; he wouldn’t be mad or upset, just the loving, comforting, compassionate young man she knew he’d grown up to become. Which was even worse, because now she wanted nothing more than for him to simply lean down and ‘comfort’ her with a kiss.

Instead, she turned her head away again. “I didn’t come here to tell you this because I wanted something out of it. I met Heather in a bar, and she tried to convince me to tell you how I felt, to take the weight of the world off my shoulders. I know she was just doing it as part of her plan to **** your hand but a lot of what she said made sense too. Yet, I can't do it. Even if it’s your decision to make, I can't put you in a position of having to choose between me and Lisa. What kind of mother would do that to her son? I only came for the bag. I thought you would have already left. When I saw the light on, I hoped it was Robert, but once I saw it was you, I knew I had to tell you, that I owed you an explanation for my absence.”

“Yeah, I just had a few last-minute things to take care of. Even though Robert is still the boss technically, it has to be my signature on everything. I had to take a drive down to the amusement park earlier to sign the new lease. I think the owner was glad to get rid of it, honestly,” Zack explained softly, keeping the conversation light. “Lisa has been looking for me too, but I’ll be heading out soon.”

“About Lisa…listen, she’s a great girl, and, don’t take this as me trying to seduce you or anything, I’m saying this as your mother, but, don’t get too serious too fast, okay?” she said, trying to put on her best mothering tone, but it was hard to do when her body was tingling with lust and she couldn’t even meet his eye. “You’re still young and you have no idea how your life is going to turn out. How should I put this…I don’t condone infidelity; it’s a horrible, selfish thing to do to anyone but, I don’t regret the time I spent with Robert. If it wasn’t for that affair, I might never have had you and even if I could go back in time, I’d do it all over again. Just…don’t go carving your life in stone before you’ve even really lived, okay?”

“Okay, mum, I’ll think about it,” Zack agreed. “Thanks.”

“Well, I should get going,” she said, though she didn’t move from his grasp. “I’ll leave you to finish your work.”

“C-can I hug you goodbye?” he asked tentatively. “That’d be okay, right?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s just a hug, right?” He insisted, truly having no ulterior motives. His body was in such a daze of new information and arousal that it was difficult to form thoughts at all.

Against her better judgement, his mother agreed, saying, ‘alright, of course’ as she wrapped her arms around her son’s shoulders while his hands slid down to her waist and around to the small of her back, the pair pulling each other closer, fuller into the embrace simultaneously.

The warmth of her body flooded his and he felt the blood pump even faster down to between his legs. Their cheeks nuzzled together, his mother purring like a contented cat, her lips parting slightly as she felt something hot and hard poke at her thigh. Never in his life had he gotten hard this fast, his cock so stiff and straining his trousers he thought it might tear right through. Neither mother nor son seemed to acknowledge it, simply holding each other closer, rubbing cheeks, gently, slowly turning their faces inwards until their lips grazed.

----------------------------- In the Conference Room Upstairs…--------------------------------

Brooke was feeling rather confident about the vote. Of the nine members of the board, four had voted to oust Robert from the company, while four had voted for him to remain, with only one person left to vote. Mile Zurbrugg had unsurprisingly voted Robert out, joined by Mr. Besumer, the treasurer and a couple of other ambitious, power-hungry men. Mrs. Laumann voiced her dissatisfaction with Robert’s judgement recently, but voted for him to remain, because she was keen on Heather inheriting. Mr. Schneider too maintained his support for Robert, as did one other member of the board along with Brooke herself. Thus, it all came down to Daniel Ravers, and he had never voted against his brother.

“Well, what say you?” Miles pressed the issue. “Yay or nay?”

With a thoughtful pause, Daniel looked to the chairman and answered, “yay. I vote to remove Robert Ravers from the company.”

“Every good. With five yays and four nays, the motion of no confidence against Robert Ravers passes. Now, we’ll need to vote for a replacement. The Bishop boy can’t be expected to actually take on the full responsibility to the company and, to maintain some degree of stability, it should be a Ravers.”

“I nominate Heather Ravers,” Mrs. Laumann spoke up. “She’s been raised in the company, knows its ins and outs, and has shown good business acumen over the years.”

“S-seconded,” Brooke said hurriedly, still completely bewildered by what had just happened. The idea of the company without Robert Ravers was unfathomable, but perhaps it could still be salvaged.

“I like the girl, but she’s still so young,” Miles Zurbrugg argued. “And my concern is that Robert would simply control the company through her, as he does with the Bishop boy. Instead, I think our own Daniel Ravers is a better candidate.”

“Seconded,” Mr. Besumer was quick to agree, almost as if it had been rehearsed.

Brooke’s eyes narrowed as Mile spoke again. “Very well, we have two candidates, so, we shall have another vote.”