Folie a Deux, Episode 01
Mother and son take a wrong turn  
Folie à Deux

Episode 1: The Breakdown

The screen is black as we hear a woman speak. Her voice is strong, certain, and decisive, her accent that of the Upper Midwest, her diction precise and educated. "Of course I remember every detail. I'll remember them until the day I die. June 18th began very happily. It didn't end that way."

The screen is taken up with a close-up of a woman against a black background. She is white, in her early 40s, and strikingly beautiful in a manner almost Classical. Her jawline is powerful and bold, tapering down sharply to a pointed and very slightly cleft chin. Her cheekbones are almost theatrically high, while her nose, though well-formed, is perhaps a touch too prominent. Her mouth is generously wide and her lips are full. Her eyes are large, dark brown, and intelligent, and her eyebrows arch imperiously. Her hair is shorter than shoulder-length and dark blonde, and hangs in unruly locks that show extreme natural waviness; it's clear that she would need to take extreme measures to make her hair obey even the slightest command. Her makeup is understated and dignified for the most part, though her lip liner is a shade darker than her lipstick and deliberately accentuates the striking arcs of her mouth. She looks her age, though she also looks well preserved. A long, graceful neck disappears into a wide-collared dark green blouse.

A subtitle appears: Emily Larsen.

"It was...the culmination of a series of mistakes," she says judiciously, her lips in a tight line and her eyes revealing a series of conflicting emotions that flash past too quickly to recognize them. "Some of them were made that day, some were made earlier. Some we made before the trip. Most of them we didn't think anything of when they happened. Obviously we never could have anticipated what would occur, or...the consequences. But that's always the way. One little mistake leads to another and another and then before you know what's happening you're in so deep you can't back out."

The screen goes black and the title card appears:

Folie à Deux

Episode 1: The Breakdown

The title card is replaced by a closeup on the face of a handsome young man in his early 20s. The familial resemblance to Emily is clear. The overall shape of the face is the same, with the same high cheekbones, bold jawline, and pointed and cleft chin. His mouth is narrower and his lips are thinner, however, and his eyes are a striking, almost shocking pale blue. The biggest difference, however, is his hair, which is dark brown, straight, and short. Unlike the woman, his ears are visible, and he sports a small, tasteful silver hoop in his left earlobe.

The subtitle reads Mike Larsen.

"We were driving from Minneapolis to San Francisco for my cousin Jackie's wedding," Mike says. His voice is deep, strong, and has the ring of youthful certainty and determination. "It was a big deal. She was marrying the son of one of the guys who runs one of the major movie studios, and there were going to be movie stars there and everything, so like third cousins were coming in from all over the country. My dad and my sister had gone out there two days before to help set things up, and because my sister had always been tight with the West Coast branch of the family."

As he speaks, Mike's face is replaced on the screen by a pair of photographs. One is of a handsome, 40ish man with dark hair and blue eyes wearing a long-sleeved blue shirt and a red tie, smiling as he stands in a group of people in a slightly shabby office ; the photograph is labeled Bob Larsen. The second photograph is of a lovely, slim young lady with unruly blonde hair and a huge smile, and she wears a high school cheerleader's outfit; the photo is labeled Olivia Larsen.

"We'd have flown out with them, but there was this party I wanted to go to -- my best friend Nick's brother Jay was going off to join the Marines, and he's a good guy so I wanted to say goodbye to him."

The photographs are replaced by a film of Emily dancing on a stage. She is tall, lithe, and trim, and her legs are long and powerful. She is wearing a dancer's leotard beneath a fringed dress, the fringes whirling along with her hair as she twists and leaps with superb grace and skill. Her voice is heard saying, "I needed to go out later so that I could be at the final performance of a show I was in. I was an assistant professor of dance at the University of Minnesota, but that doesn't pay a lot. Bob made a steady salary as a social worker for Hennepin County, but the pay there was even worse. With Mike heading off to college and Olivia still in high school, we needed every penny we could get. So I did shows with a local company, gave private dance lessons, whatever I could do to pay the bills."

Mike's smiles at the camera. "It wasn't like I was looking forward to spending three days in a car with my mom. I mean, we got along OK and everything, but not a lot of 18-year-old guys want to be stuck in a minivan with their moms visiting her friends and aunts you never heard of before. But that was what worked out for the schedule."

Mike's face is replaced by a photograph of a white 1999 Chevrolet minivan sitting in a driveway in front of an open garage on a sunny summer day. Emily stands next to the vehicle wearing shorts that show off her legs and a baggy old Minnesota Twins tee shirt; she is laughing as she runs a soapy sponge along the hood.

"Mom drove this old Chevy Lumina," Mike says in an amused-sounding voice-over. "And she loved that thing. Olivia and I used to joke she loved it more than she loved her kids. She never let anybody else drive it, not even dad. She babied it, she even named it -- 'Lou,' short for Lumina, right? She'd have actual conversations with it and everything. We used to tease her about it all the time, but it was her thing."

"I did love Lou," Emily admits with a smile as her face returns to the screen. "He was a faithful old guy. He was the first new vehicle I ever had and I treated him right. He was reliable and I loved driving him." Her smile falters as she adds, "But the GPS didn't work."

"Olivia broke the GPS," Mike explains as we see him again. "She was in the passenger seat, on the phone with her boyfriend, waving her arms around, and she hit it. Knocked it off the dashboard, busted it. Dad said we didn't have money to get it replaced then."

"I didn't think we'd need it," Emily explains seriously. "Most of our trip was going to be on freeways. It didn't seem like a big issue at the time."

Emily's face is replaced by a map of the northern Plains states as a red line begins to trace from Minneapolis, first south along I-35 and then west along I-90. "We left early on the morning of the 16th," her voice continues. The line terminates in Rapid City, South Dakota, at the edge of the Black Hills National Forest, and then the map disappears and is replaced by a picture of Emily sitting at a kitchen table with an elderly woman, both smiling brightly. "The first thing I wanted to do was visit my Aunt Penny. She's a wonderful person and Mike had never met her, so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity. She was...I think 82 then, but she made a lavish dinner for us and we spent the night there. She didn't want to let us leave the next day, she just wanted us to stay and keep visiting."

"We left early again on the 17th," Mike picks up as the screen shows a succession of photographs: the Black Hills, dark and brooding; Mike and Emily standing shoulder to shoulder in front of Mt. Rushmore, smiling at the camera; a scattering of tombstones on a barren hillside. "We saw Mt. Rushmore, which was okay, but I loved the Custer Battlefield. It was a really hot day and there wasn't a breath of wind. The air was just hanging there heavy, like a blanket. I remember standing on the top of that hill and looking down into the valley, past the tombstones to where the Sioux had their camp back then. The heat was making everything shimmer. It felt like I could almost hear the screams and the shots, like the place was haunted."

The map resumes as the red line picks up again, traveling south and then west from the Black Hills on State 18, then west on State 20 until it hits I-25, which it follows to Casper, Wyoming. At Casper it strikes out on a series of state and county highways at it heads south and west: 220, 287, 28, and then finally northwest on 191 toward Pinedale before finally turning off into ranchland. "Our next stop was my friend Corinne's house," Emily says, "and we got completely lost. That should have been a warning, but we finally found her place. I assumed we could retrace our steps."

Now there appears a photo of a large ranch house with impressive mountains in the background, and then another of Emily smiling as she stands next to a shorter, slightly plump woman about her age. "I went to college with Corinne," Emily explains. "We were both going to be dancers, and then we both got pregnant. I went back to school after the babies, but she married a rancher in Wyoming. They have a huge spread and I don't even know how many cattle. I hadn't seen her face-to-face since her wedding, so of course I enjoyed sitting down with her again, meeting her kids, having her meet Mike. It was good."

Against a black screen, we see another title card:

June 18th

Emily reappears. Looking pensive, she opens her mouth to speak, closes it again, takes a deep breath, starts and stops again, and says, "It was my fault. I'd gotten lost on the way to Corinne's house so I'd had her write out very explicit directions back to the highway. It was almost a page long, handwritten, extremely detailed...and then I forgot it and left it sitting on the kitchen table. It was my fault."

Mike's face replaces his mother's. He is looking off to the side, his expression a mixture of emotions in which regret and irritation feature prominently. He doesn't look at the camera as he speaks. "It's my fault. I saw the instructions on the table when we were leaving. I thought mom was just being nervous when she asked for it. I thought we could find our way back to the road with no problem."

The screen is taken up by a montage of rolling Wyoming scrubland, hill after nearly-

identical hill of low brush interspersed with stunted trees. The footage is slightly grainy and much of it is taken from a vehicle, with the overall impact being that the land in the area is dreary, intimidating, and very confusing in its relentless sameness.

"I got lost," Emily says in voiceover. "And it wasn't just that I couldn't find the road. When I realized I couldn't find the road, I looked for the directions and realized I'd left them at Corinne's." Her face appears again with a rueful expression. "So we tried our phones. And, of course, there was no signal. We were miles away from anywhere, so there were no wireless towers. And, as I mentioned, the GPS was out, which would have saved us has it been working. I was irritated, but I didn't think we were in trouble."

Cut to Mike, who explains, "And, like, three hours later, we're still driving. Like, in circles. It was weird, because we kept seeing the same damned rock fence" -- and here we see a grainy film of a crow sitting upon a dry-stone wall along the side of a dusty dirt road, surrounded by scrubby hills, with the Rockies looming ultramarine in the distance -- "and we kept saying, 'OK, now we've seen this before," and then half an hour later we've somehow looped around and we were seeing it again. It was kind of funny. I mean, you can't get mad about that kind of stuff, can you?"

"When the accident happened," Emily says, "we were driving along side of a little stream, just a trickle of water coming down from the hills. There were thick trees and undergrowth between the stream and the road. I didn't even know the deer was there until it was jumping right into the front of my minivan."

We see a slideshow of the Larsen minivan after the accident. The front passenger side is dented, the windshield is a spiderwebbed mess of broken, bloody glass, and the front axle has been ripped off as the van rolled over a rock.

"It committed suicide," Emily explains calmly in voiceover. "It purposefully threw itself into a moving vehicle. It was a stupid, stupid animal."

Pictures of the wreck are replaced by a brief clip of a pronghorn antelope looking stupid.

"We didn't even have time to realize what it was," Mike explains. "There was a tenth of a second of movement flashing in and then there was this crunching thud as we hit the thing. It flipped up off the front end -- I remember seeing it almost upside down with those spindly legs up in the air -- and then we hit it again with the windshield, and the whole thing just shattered."

"I lost control of the vehicle," Emily says in voiceover as we again see a closeup of the wrecked front axle, "and lurched off the road. I think I was going about 30. I couldn't have been going faster on that road."

Mike is looking amused. "We felt the axle rip off, right? And we came to this sudden stop, and the airbags didn't even go off. And then mom starts swearing. I mean, she never swears, but all of a sudden she's saying words I didn't even know she knew, this string of absolute filth just gushing out of her mouth for like three straight minutes."

Cut to Emily, looking as innocent as a lamb, saying, simply, "I didn't swear. I don't swear in normal conversation."

Back to Mike, "So she's just ripping it. 'Motherfucking deer cocksucker piece of fucking idiot shit deer!' and on and on until it became just a string of swear words that didn't even make any sense. And I start laughing, because I'd never, ever heard her swear. Once I saw her hit her thumb with a hammer so hard she split the nail, and she was all, 'Oh gosh darn it.' But wreck her favorite minivan and she'll swear like a sailor."

Cut briefly to a silent Emily, so prim that butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.

"So," Mike continues, "we started walking."

"We had to walk," Emily says. "We had no idea where we were or how to get to the road, and we hadn't seen another soul since we left Corinne's. For all we knew we could sit there a week and nobody would come by, and we weren't getting any cell signal. We had no choice."

There is a grainy clip of a long, lonely road leading into the rolling, scrubby hills.

"It was hot," Mike says in voiceover. "It was like 90 by that point and getting hotter, not even a breeze. There were no clouds. We had a little water but no food because we'd expected to be eating our lunch in some roadside diner, not trudging through the middle of nowhere. So it was pretty wack."

Cut to Emily, looking troubled. "I think we'd been walking for about 30 minutes when I looked over my shoulder and saw the dust cloud rising from the hill we'd just come over. I pointed it out to Mike, and I think we both had a surge of excitement and hope. It didn't last."

"It was way too big a cloud to be raised by one vehicle, like a pickup," Mike says. "And it didn't take 30 seconds before we were hearing the motorcycle sounds."

"Corinne had told us there were outlaw biker gangs in the hills," says Emily. "We...didn't think we'd meet one of them."

"My first reaction was to, like, hide or something," Mike says, looking pensive. "But there was literally no place we could hide. There's nothing on those hills but foot-high scrub. We were going to stand out no matter what we did."

"I thought hiding might make it worse," says Emily. Her face is a carefully-composed mask that shows no emotion whatsoever. "I've always heard that if one meets a bear in the woods, one isn't to turn and run. Running triggers the bear's predator instinct and it begins the chase. Instead, the way to escape a bear is to show no fear and to slowly back away. I thought that was the best policy."

"And that," Mike says matter-of-factly, "is how we met the Visigoths."

Cut to a middle-aged man with an olive complexion, strong features, receding dark hair, and a mustache. He is neither handsome nor ugly, but rather has the sort of face that one might reasonably expect to forget almost immediately. He is wearing a medium-gray suit over a light blue shirt and a dark tie. His subtitle reads Milo Hernandez, Senior Special Agent, FBI Field Office -- Denver.

"The Visigoths Motorcycle Club is a one-percenter biker gang operating in the central mountain region of the western United States," he says in a clipped, professional tone. "They focus on meth production and distribution and prostitution, for the most part. They're one of the smaller outfits out there, but they're very aggressive in defending their territory." As he's speaking, the screen shows a shot of the Visigoth logo -- a menacing human skull with red eyes, wearing a steel helmet with a nasal piece above the words "Visigoths MC" written in Gothic lettering. "They're smarter than a lot of their peers because they don't make trouble where they're based. In fact, they often have arrangements with city and county law enforcement that involve the law enforcement laying off of them in return for the Visigoths not committing crimes against citizens of that jurisdiction. Local sheriffs find it easier to ignore them, take a bribe, and let someone else deal with the problems they cause."

The image is replaced onscreen by shaky phone-cam video of a brutal brawl between what appears to be rival motorcycle gangs; the footage gets granier as it zooms in on the Visigoths threads of some of the fighters as they wield baseball bats with tremendous effectiveness, and as two hold a rival biker while a third beats him remorselessly with a length of chain. Hernandez says, "Two years before the Larsens' encounter with them, this chapter of the Visigoths was involved in an attack on a bar in Cheyenne, Wyoming run by another gang that was trying to edge in on their meth distribution racket. This attack led to over a dozen hospitalizations, including one where the victim was in a coma for over three months, and the burning of the bar."

Next we see home-movie footage of an American Indian man playing tag football in a backyard, and then a still photograph of that man smiling as he's surrounded by friends. Hernandez continues, "Six months after that event, they were implicated in the disappearance of Andrew White Feather, a businessman from Colorado Springs who apparently was planning to go to the police with information about the club. No body was ever found and no charges were ever brought because evidence was lacking, but police never had any other suspects."

We were alarmed," Emily says as we see her again. "They were dressed...well, like outlaw bikers, obviously. Those sorts of people dress to frighten people like us, and they succeeded."

"We stepped off the road as they came up," says Mike, "like maybe they could pass us by if they wanted to. But they didn't. Of course. The came up us and sort of circled around us, close in but staying on their bikes. Mom was squeezing my hand so hard it hurt."

"I was terrified," Emily says simply. "We both were. I'm not ashamed of it. Anyone sensible would be frightened in that situation."

We see the mugshot of a white man who could have been an extremely weathered 35 or a rather-weathered 50. He sports a full beard and a long mane of light-brown hair; tattoos are visible on both sides of his neck. He stares at the booking camera with insolent contempt, and the look in his eyes is unsettlingly predatory. "The leader of this chapter at the time was Douglas Hounslow," Agent Hernandez says in voice-over, "better known as Petey to his friends. He'd spent time in prison in four different states as well as the Federal Penitentiary system for crimes ranging from solicitation and drug offenses all the way up to assault with a deadly weapon. He was implicated and held in two murders, but never charged," and here the screen shows two side-by-side photographs, one of a lovely young woman with the subtitle Victoria Reese and the other of a man in biker leathers with the label Edwin Fewkes. We see Hernandez again as he says, "Witnesses disappeared or changed their stories, evidence came up missing, that sort of thing. He was a very resourceful and violent man."

"The leader said his name was Petey," Emily says as she reappears, "and at first he actually seemed nice. Frightening still, of course, because of his appearance, but he spoke politely and calmly. He asked us if the wrecked minivan was ours, and of course we had to admit it was. He asked us what we were doing out there."

"I told them that we were visiting someone there and got lost on the way back to their house," Mike says. "I wanted them to think there was someone waiting for us who'd call the cops if we didn't show up. I'm pretty sure they didn't buy it."

"I don't think they believed Mike's story," Emily confirms. "But aside from looking like they looked and being a little too close to us, they weren't threatening. If anything, at that point they seemed to be going out of their way to disprove stereotypes about bikers by being pleasant and polite. We talked a bit and it ended with Petey offering to take us to the nearest service station. We accepted the offer."

"I think mom believed him," Mike says with a sour expression. "I didn't, not from the start, but we were stuck. I didn't think we were being offered a choice though, no matter how polite they phrased it, so I got on the bike too."

"I don't know if I believed them or not," Emily muses. "I wanted to. It's very...seductive, when you're frightened, to be offered an explanation of the situation that makes you less scared. I took that explanation at face value because the alternative was more frightening. And besides, when the media depicts socially-marginalized groups, the coverage tends to be sensational and inaccurate, so I thought that perhaps bikers had simply gotten a bad reputation they didn't deserve. So we got on and we went for a ride. It was a short ride, I think less than 15 minutes, and we were there."

Her face is replaced by shaky, hand-held camera footage of a large three-story building with peeling white paint and a sagging roof. In the background mountains loom in the distance, while in the foreground is an assemblage of vehicles of various sorts, from motorcycles to cars to vans, some in partial disrepair. Then there is a shot of a large firepit with a motorized spit capable of taking an entire cow, surrounded by benches and picnic tables. Another shot shows a long shed that perhaps had once been a stable but now contains two rows of close-parked motorcycles, a workbench, and tools on the walls.

At this point the screen is taken up by what looks like cell-phone footage of a drunken nighttime revel, lit mainly by a blaze in the firepit: bikers in their jackets stand and sit with beer, liquor, and marijuana, while several tattooed, scantily-clad women sit in their laps or dance in a manner suggesting that they're strippers, and one is even off to the side performing fellatio on a heavily-muscled and tattooed biker in a wifebeater. We hear Agent Hernandez again, saying, "The local chapter was headquartered out of a complex that had been built as a hunting lodge back around the turn of the 20th century. During Prohibition it had been turned into an illegal resort casino, and since that time it has served variously as a brothel, a drug treatment center, and a commune. The Visigoths had been there about seven years by that point and were using the complex as a combination clubhouse, dormitory, garage, warehouse for contraband, and meth lab."

Emily again, saying, "It looked run-down. It looked unpleasant. Frankly the whole place smelled bad, and even the whole pig they had roasting on the spit didn't disguise the stench. There were women there whom I didn't want my son to see, and they were dressed very...well, one of them was topless. It was a place I wanted us to be away from as soon as we could be."

Mike is shown again, looking thoughtful. "You want to know what I thought when I saw the place? It looked like the kind of place you see in movies where innocent people get chopped to bits and fed to pigs. It was really bad. There was this really strong smell of cat piss in the air. This place was obviously a meth lab, among other things. And everybody -- everybody -- was looking at us like we were meat. Most of them were sort of grinning at us, like there was a big joke that we weren't in on. Because we were the joke."

Cut to Emily. "Now that we had arrived at their hideout, it did feel as though a mask was dropped and we were being allowed to see the true face of things. It's difficult to explain, because we weren't being threatened or even spoken to directly, but time and again we saw bikers or their women whispering in little knots, looking at us, and then giving us unpleasant smiles."

"It was pretty obvious after a couple minutes that they had something cooked up for us," Mike confirms. "It was like we were flies who came pounding on a spider's door demanding to be let in, like they couldn't quite believe we'd come with them and they were trying to decide how bad they were going to fuck us up. Like I said, it wasn't what anybody said or was even doing, it was just this vibe, this really nasty vibe in the air. It's like when you're a little kid and bigger kids are around you, mean kids -- you don't need them to make threats to feel threatened. You know they're going to do something to you and they're just enjoying letting you twist in the wind before they do it. There was no doubt."

"We...were aware of our situation," Emily says. "Acutely so. I liken the feeling to being cornered by a vicious dog, where the dog isn't necessarily actively threatening you at the moment, but you know you're only a twitch away from being mauled. The danger is something you sense on an instinctual level. Mike and I were standing together, trying to avoid eye contact with absolutely everyone else, when a...woman approached us."

The screen now shows a stage at a strip club where a bottle-blonde struts. She is impressively leggy and not unskilled as she swings up on the pole, but the comparison between her relatively crude moves and the almost preternatural grace Emily showed in her clip is unavoidable. She wears a cropped white tank-top over rock-hard fake breasts, a dark blue G-string, and spiked heels, and her ensemble reveals an extensive collection of tattoos, mostly stars but mingled with paw prints, kanji characters, and several unreadable words in frilly script. The subtitle reads Janna "Swan" Dundee.

"She was obviously a stripper," Emily continues in voiceover, the distaste evident in her voice. "She was wearing a tee shirt with no bra, and her nipples were plainly visible through the fabric. She pressed herself up against my son like he wasn't standing right next to his mother."

Mike looks amused. "This chick comes rubbing up on me. Not even remotely my type, even if I wasn't terrified at that moment. But she actually makes eye contact with mom as she starts whispering this absolute filth in my ear, which really pissed mom off."

"I shoved her," Emily says proudly. "I'm not a violent woman, but I was already frightened and when I saw that...tart rubbing herself against my son like a cat in heat, I snapped. It was the maternal protective instinct taking over."

"The chick stumbled back maybe three steps and then came right back at mom, like BAM, total catfight mode, screaming how she was going to fuck mom up," Mike says. "So I put my arm out and this chick hits it like almost neck level, right? Almost like I clotheslined her, which I didn't mean to do. All I wanted to do was stop her, but then she's pissed at me and coming at me with fingernails out, like she's gonna take out my eye or something. And that's when I noticed things had gotten really, really quiet."

"Everyone was looking at us," says Emily. "Everyone. There was no conversation, no movement except for the tart who was unleashing profanities at us and trying to attack my son. She scratched him on the arm before Petey stepped in."

"The leader grabbed the chick by the arm and yanked her back and just stared into her eyes," Mike relates. "He didn't have to say a thing, he just stared and she got as meek as a mouse. After maybe ten seconds of her (and me) being really uncomfortable, he lets her go and she wanders off rubbing the place on her arm where he'd grabbed her. Then he looked at mom the same way."

"I knew...I knew I'd done something foolish," Emily says, actually looking shaken at the recollection, "and I admit my blood ran cold. I could see in his eyes that he was a man who'd stop at nothing. Mike put his arm around my shoulders and puffed out his chest, but...no. I knew I couldn't have Mike making a show of defiance then. My son was a strong young man and someone he cared for was in danger, and strong young men do stupid things in times like that; they can't help it, it's in their natures. It was my...impetuosity that brought it to a head, and I couldn't have my son being hurt because of me."

"Mom blames herself for how it went down," Mike says, shaking his head. "But if she hadn't pushed that chick, it would have been something else. The chick would have kept on doing more and more and then some biker would have come over and gotten pissed I was messing with his woman, or else I'd have given somebody a funny expression that made them come after us. What happened with her pushing the girl wasn't a cause, it was a pretext. Something was going to go down from the moment the Visigoths topped that hill and saw us by the side of the road."

"Petey just stared at me," Emily says. "It seemed like hours, but I'm sure it was no more than a few seconds. Then turned to Mike and asked --"

"'Champ, think you can hold your shit together for ten minutes while your mom and I have a talk?'" Mike says, affecting a growly voice. "What could I say? Like I could tell him no?"

"He took me by the arm and led me away from my son," Emily says levelly. "Walking away from my son at that time, being taken by that terrible man into that building, was the most difficult thing I've ever had to do."

From offscreen we hear a female voice asking, "Even harder than what came after?"

Emily nods decisively. "Yes, harder than anything that came after. A part of me wondered if I would come back out of that building alive, but that wasn't what worried me most. A much bigger part of me wondered whether, if I did come back, I would find my son alive and unharmed. There was a feeling in the air as though...a trap had been triggered, perhaps? Or rather, that a horn had been blown and now the hounds were going to tear the fox to bits. That was what was terrifying, knowing that I was abandoning him to those bandits and that I could do nothing to protect him."

"Rape?" Mike says. "A beating? Murder? All of the above? I watched her go and I thought all those things were possible. And I couldn't do a goddamned thing about it. Not a fucking thing."

"He took me into the foyer," Emily says. "Rather, what had been the foyer at some time. Now it was a living room of sorts, with a large television and some dreadfully tatty furniture. He had me sit on the sofa and sat next to me but not uncomfortably close. He offered me a drink, which I declined, but he insisted. I think it was Jack Daniels, and he made me drink a fairly large tot of it. And then he started telling me a story." Her voice quavers just a bit as she says this, but she quickly recovers. "He told me about a Native American man from Colorado Springs -- he called him a 'redskin' -- who had been in business with them."

Again we see a picture of Andrew White Feather.

"Apparently this man had gotten into trouble with the police and decided to give evidence against the Visigoths. In retaliation, the Visigoths kidnapped him and brought him here. They tortured him for two days -- Petey said that they flayed him alive at the end, and when he died they cut his body into small pieces a few inches on a side and scattered the pieces in the mountains so that animals could eat them." Emily is shown, looking unsettled. "His objective was to terrify me. He succeeded. And then he told me that my son and I had abused the hospitality of the club by attacking one of their, and I use his word, 'bitches,' when said bitch was just trying to be welcoming."

We then see a different picture of "Petey" Hounslow, and as Emily continues to speak we slowly zoom in on his eyes to find an absolute lack of empathy, kindness, or any human virtue; his is the gaze of a predatory beast. We hear Emily in voiceover saying, "He drew a knife from his boot. It was the biggest knife I've ever see. The blade was at least 15 inches long and serrated along part of its back -- I think it's what's called a Bowie knife. The tip was as sharp as a needle, which I know because he suddenly put a hand around my throat and held the tip up to my eye. He told me that he'd be justified in taking my eye then and there as 'retribution.' He used that word several times, 'retribution,' as though trying to keep some disease-ridden prostitute off my underage son was some sort of crime. But I couldn't argue."

Emily looks agitated and distressed as we see her again. "He went on to explain that he didn't want to kill me or Mike, but he needed to make a show of punishing me. Honestly, I was too terrified to understand very much of what he was saying, even when he began talking about alternatives, such as letting his men have their way with me -- all forty-something of them -- or having Mike 'catch a beating.' I was...frantic, panicking, babbling, pleading. I realize now that this reaction was exactly what he wanted. He wanted my fear, my desperation, and I gave it to him. I couldn't hold it back." She sighs deeply, and adds, "And then he told me what Mike and I had to do in order to get out of there alive."

"I was still outside," Mike says. "I was just waiting there for...something. I didn't know what was happening to my mom. I didn't know what would happen to me either, but I didn't care about that, not then. And no, it's not like I was brave or heroic or any of that shit. My mom was in trouble, and that's all that mattered. I wasn't even thinking about myself.

"Anyway," he continues, "my arm was starting to sting. That stripper chick had clawed me like six times up and down my arms and now that I didn't have anything to do except sit and worry, I was feeling it. And I was surrounded by a bunch of a-holes who were just looking for an excuse to fuck me up. And maybe two minutes after my mom goes in, all of a sudden there was a guy right next to me. He was a huge dude, like six-six, two-fifty, the kind of guy whose muscles have muscles. He was carrying a bottle of Jack and he told me to take a drink, said it would settle me down. I'm not a drinker, and especially not then -- I just never liked it much. But I wasn't going to tell this guy to go take a leap, you know? So I took a drink -- a few drinks, until he told me to stop. I don't know, maybe as much as you'd get in three or four shots. Then he claps me on the shoulder like we're best buddies and walks off.

"I don't know how long I was waiting. How long she was in there, I mean. It was a while, maybe ten minutes? Then she came out, and I was like, 'Great, she's not hurt!' And then I saw the look on her face, and..." Mike pauses, obviously searching for a word. "Shattered. Like when you throw a glass against a wall. That's how her face looked. Not physically, she wasn't even touched. But emotionally...yeah, shattered. That's when I knew it was bad."

"I honestly don't know how I walked out of there," Emily says. "My head was swimming. I felt like my stomach was actually trying to get out of my mouth. It wasn't nerves of 'butterflies,' it actually felt like my stomach was physically trying to remove itself from my body. I was sick. I was so sick at the thought. But it needed to be me to tell him, not that vicious thug. I did win that...concession...from Petey. Mike met me halfway and hugged me. Just that...hug, that huge hug." Her voice catches in her throat and she wipes a tear from her cheek. "Sorry. I just remember that hug, the purity of it, the absolute and unconditional love I felt, and I remember the ache, the sorrow inside me at knowing it would never happen again between us. Not that kind of hug."

Mike licks his lips nervously. "I asked her what was wrong, and she said, 'Mikey, we need to talk.' Now, she only ever calls me 'Mikey' when something is fucking awful, so I knew we were in for it. My stomach just...bam, right through the ground. But I held her as close as I could, you know? That was all I could do."

Emily looks distraught, though she's struggling to keep a strong front. "I told him that Petey had given us a choice of four ways we could leave there. The first was that I could...as Petey described it, 'pull a train' of every man there, two or three times, however many times they wanted me and in whatever way. I couldn't even get that out of my mouth before Mike said no."

"I didn't say no," Mike corrects. "I shouted it. The leader had come out of the building by then and I almost went after him then and there for even suggesting that -- it was only the fact that mom was holding me back that kept me from it. The leader just smirked, the fucker."

"I tried to convince him," Emily says, "but of course he wouldn't hear of it. He pointed out that there were perhaps 40 men there, all of them rough and vicious, and even if only half of them wanted to go a second time, there was physically no way I could survive 60 rapes, one after another. And he was right, of course, but that was the solution I wanted to take. I tried to convince him."

"She was seriously set on it," Mike sighs. "But there was no way. No way I was going to let that happen if I had to die to try and stop it. Mom wanted to pick that one so that they'd leave me alone, but they'd have had to kill me. No way. No way."

"I told him the second option was for him to, as Petey said, 'catch a beating.'" Emily's voice hardens. "He asked what that meant, and I told him that the bikers would all take it in turn to beat him, kick him, punch him. Perhaps to death. He didn't hesitate in telling me he would."

"If it meant they'd let her go unharmed?" Mike asks. "Yeah, of course I would. I'd have done it in a heartbeat then. I'd do it in a heartbeat now. She told me no."

"I couldn't stand by and watch my son be beaten to death," Emily says plaintively. "It would kill me. I'd die. I genuinely don't know how I could possibly survive that. I wouldn't let him. I told him the third option."

Mike is looking off to the side for a moment. "The third choice. Yeah. She told me that what the leader wanted was a show. A sex show. Between me and her, right there, right then." He looks back at the camera. "He wanted us to fuck. He wanted me and my mother to fuck, for her to be vocal in her pleasure, for us to convince them that we really did love it. If we did that, he said they'd let us go."

"There was one more thing," Emily says, looking rather forlornly into the camera. "He had to ejaculate inside me. More than that, I had to beg him to ejaculate inside me. My own son."

"I asked what the fourth way out was," Mike says, "and she said that was if they just killed us both, cut us up, and scattered us in the mountains. So it wasn't much of a choice. One way I wouldn't let her take, one way she wouldn't let me take, and one way we couldn't take. That only left one thing."

Emily again, her head cocked at a thoughtful angle, eyes on the floor. "It didn't seem real, and at the same time it was the most completely immediate moment of my entire life." She looks up at the camera and there is something strange in her eyes, the look of someone who has seen and done things that are incomprehensible to the audience. "Of course it was unreal, because I was about to have sex with my teenage son in front of an audience of savages. How could that possibly be real? At the same time, though, the presence of danger -- extreme danger, of the worst sort -- heightened everything."

From offscreen, a female voice asks, "What sort of things?"

"My senses," Emily says. "Everything seemed astonishingly vivid. The colors were sharper than I'd ever noticed them before or since. The smells, the cat urine and the roasting pork, the gasoline and the wood smoke from the fire, engine grease, unwashed bikers -- all of that burned itself into my memory. I can smell it all still in my mind, as though I was still there. My hearing, though...I suppose that's the exception. I know there was talking around us, an excited buzz from our intended audience, laughing, swearing, but I don't think any of it registered. I could only really hear my son's voice and my own."

"I can't tell you how I felt," Mike says with a shrug. "It's too complicated, too mixed up. I was angry a lot more than I was scared, and I wasn't scared of the bikers anymore. I was scared of actually doing it. The actual sex. Not being watched, not even being forced to do it. I was scared of doing it with my mom. I didn't want to hurt her. I didn't want to...mess her up. I mean, I knew it was going to mess both of us up, but I wanted to protect her. And...I...didn't want to disappoint her. It's stupid to think about it at a time like that, but it was going to be traumatic enough her that I didn't want bad sex to be piled on top of it. But then that's fucked up because it's like, I want to be a good fuck FOR MY MOM. And so I immediately started thinking I was a pervert for even thinking that, like, putting a qualitative thing on what we had to do. Like, shouldn't it have been something I just put my head down and got through? Was it fucked up that I wanted to make it good for her? Should she know her son is a good fuck? Should I know what it takes to be a good fuck for her? So there's all these crazy questions just crashing through my mind. I told you it was complicated."

"Did you have a girlfriend at the time?" the interviewer asks.

"No," Mike says. "But there was a girl I liked a lot."

Another picture appears: a petite redhead with freckles, sparkling green eyes, and an enormous smile. Her name is given as Hannah Williamson.

Mike relates in voiceover, "Hannah. We'd never really done anything, but we were really attracted to each other. She was this awesome, amazing girl, super smart, funny, sweet, hot. Everything, the whole deal. We'd been kinda dancing with each other for a long time, like this mutual attraction that never worked out. She was free when I was going out with somebody, and when I was free she was dating somebody else. She broke up with her boyfriend at the end of senior year and she and I had talked a few times since then. I was planning to ask her out as soon as I got back from the wedding."

"I knew Mike wasn't a virgin," Emily says with a shrug. "I suppose that mostly I tried not to think too much about it."

The offscreen woman asks, "When you realized that there was no choice, that you two would have to have sex, did you want it to be good for him? Right in the first moment you realized, I mean."

Emily considers this for a few seconds, then says, "No. Honestly it wasn't a thought that I was capable of formulating in that moment. I didn't want to hurt him. I didn't want to scar him emotionally any more than was absolutely necessary. But right then, right when we decided that we had to do it, no, it didn't occur to me to want to be good for him."

The offscreen interviewer again: "What was that moment like for you?"

"Horrific," Emily says without hesitation. "Mike is my son, and I was about to have sex with him. I was about to share something with him that parents are never supposed to share with their children. Society and nature have always said that. It sickened me that we were being forced to transgress perhaps the single most fundamental law in human relations."

"Everybody started forming this big circle around us," Mike says. "It was like it was a clown show or something for them. They were laughing and smiling and shouting stuff. Like, 'Show your mamma how much you love her' and 'Make a man outta that boy,' stuff like that. Like it was a game. And there we were, we had to fuck right there in the dirt, me and my mom. I didn't even know how to start, so I told her I loved her."

"Mike put his lips against my ear and whispered," Emily says, her voice tightening with emotion. "I'll always remember his exact words. He said, 'Mom, I love you. I'll always love you. Nothing that happens here today will change that. Nothing these people could do can touch that. Just hold onto that and we'll be fine."

"How did that make you feel?" the interviewer asks.

"Proud!" Emily says emphatically. "It was so mature, so strong. I think he was stronger in that moment than I was, and I felt like I was going to explode with pride that he had become such a...a powerful young man. He wasn't a boy anymore, he was a man, and I just felt myself swell with love for him. It's strange, certainly, but those words, and the complete confidence with which he said them, actually made me feel safe."

"I made the first move," says Mike. "There was no way I was going for boobs or between her legs right off, that would have been way too much for me, and for her too. I had my lips right there, so I nibbled her ear. I took her earlobe between my lip sand just suckled on it, sort of teased it with my tongue. And instantly I felt her pull in this deep breath, this sort of gasp."

"My ears are my most sensitive spot," Emily says, pulling back her hair to reveal her left ear, decorated by a tasteful silver stud. "At least, my most sensitive spot not usually covered by clothing. He didn't know that about me, of course. How could he? But he went right there and...and his lips were so clever, so certain, so direct. I was shocked by it, shocked by the act, shocked by how right the move was on his part...shocked at how good he was at it. Right from the very first, he was...exquisite."

"Where were your hands?" the interviewer asks.

"One was on his shoulder, just resting there, and the other was on his hip, just above his waistline. I was very stiff. If he hadn't made the first move, I don't know if I could have. But he took the initiative...the...command. I needed that."

"I was surprised by her reaction," Mike says with a trace of a cocky smile. "It was the first time I'd touched her sexually, and it wasn't even really that sexual, but she loved it."

"How did that make you feel?" the offscreen interviewer asks.

His smile gets a little bigger as he said, "Good. I wanted it to be good for her. I wanted her to be able to...lose herself in it. It was like, if she could shut out all these other people, if we could do that, I mean -- if it was just us, just her and me doing this, then it would be as bad for either of us."

"The way his arms were around me, I could really feel his strength," Emily says. Something in her voice suggests that this is not an unpleasant memory. "He was an athlete and very, very fitness-conscious. Bob was too, of course, but there's a difference between the body of a high-school athlete and a 38-year-old man with a desk job who runs and goes to the gym. I couldn't deny it was a pleasant difference. Mike's arms were strong and absolutely certain. He had one hand on my lower back, above my waist, and it was very chaste and proper but I could feel it there, so big, so steady. I think I felt his hand even more than I did the lips on my ear because it made me feel so supported. His other arm was around my upper back, holding me up, hold me to him. And his lips on me..." She finishes with a small, slightly awkward and ashamed smile.

"She tilted her head," Mike says. "Just a little, but it made her hair drop out of the way so I could kiss her ear better. It was obvious she liked it, so I kept doing it to relax her...maybe start her thinking that it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world."

"I don't think I was getting turned on yet," Emily muses, "but it did feel very good. It wasn't erotic (at least not yet) but it was very sensual and soft and intimate. The intimacy was the thing I needed most in that situation. I just closed my eyes and let it happen."

"I worked her earlobe for a little while, then I took my mouth off it," Mike says. "She tensed a little at first, but when she realized that I was just moving to the other ear she tilted her head and brushed her hair back to make it easier for me to get it. When I got my lips on it she made a kind of a happy sound, almost like a little purr, and then a gasp. And then she told me I was really good at that."

"I told him that to encourage him," Emily says, "and because it was the truth. At that point I'd been married to his father for almost 15 years, and with him for over 19, and he still wasn't as good at that as Mike was from the first moment he put his lips on me. I wanted him to know he was doing it right."

"I wasn't in a hurry," Mike tells us. "The assholes wanted a show, but I didn't give a fuck about them. This was about me and my mom, and she was liking this. So I went from left to right and back again. She sort of cuddled up against me, just pressed herself against me real close, and I tightened my arms around her. She liked that too, and by the time I was back on her left ear she'd taken her hand from my shoulder and was running her fingers through my hair."

"It was strange, certainly, to be doing that with my son," Emily says. "Don't misunderstand that. It was painful and awkward and so incredibly sad that I can't put it into words. But that doesn't mean that my nerves stopped functioning. It doesn't mean that things that normally felt good somehow didn't feel good. And it doesn't matter how strong your soul is -- your body can still betray you."

"When I first kissed her on the lips was probably the most awkward part of the whole thing, start to finish," says Mike. "It was sexual in a way the ear thing wasn't. It was my lips on hers, my tongue on hers. That was when we had to pull each other across the line."

"To this day I'm grateful he kissed me," Emily says. "It's not just that he took the initiative, though I needed him to do that. But the kiss was so very intimate. When I felt his lips on mine and felt his tongue move across my lips, I found I could shut out all the awful things that were being said around me, the puerile lewdness those barbarians were shouting at us, and focus completely on him, and on me, and on that kiss. It was the perfect thing to do."

"It was just lips at first," Mike tells us. "I pressed my lips against her lips and just held them there for a few seconds, before I began to move them, and in a moment she responded. She started kissing me back. I think she needed the reassurance that a kiss gave her, the reassurance that I loved her and always would. And then, after about a minute of kissing with closed mouths, I ran my tongue across the crease where her lips met. She made a little sound when she felt it, just this little gasp that I could barely hear. It was almost more of an exhalation. She stiffened a bit and let my tongue move...and then she parted her lips and let our tongues meet."

"It was just the tips of our tongues at first," Emily recalls. "Just the very most nimble part of the end, touching tentatively and hesitantly. I recall my mind screaming at me that I was French kissing my son and it was wrong, but there was another part of me that realized it was still a kiss."

"What do you mean?" asks the interviewer.

"I mean that even though it was with my son, and I shouldn't have been doing it, it felt good to have my tongue against his, just as it would have with anyone else. Except...no, better than anyone else. Better than anyone else in the world. I was kissing Mike and it was all right because I loved him. I loved him more than any other man in the world."

"More than your husband?"

Emily shrugs and smiles, a simple and eloquent answer on its own. "My relationship with Bob was...interesting. Complex, certainly. We'll talk more about that later, but for now I will simply say that I never loved Bob nearly as much as I loved Mike. And when our tongues met and began to dance together, I realized that the love I felt for him was what was going to get me -- us -- through the ordeal."

"But it wasn't that kind of love, was it?" the interviewer asks.

"No," Emily admits, "but I discovered something then: that love, real love, is a very flexible thing. It becomes what it needs to be to survive, and to help you survive. We loved each other like mother and son, but in that moment we needed our love to carry us through, and it changed to be able to do that. When our tongues began to move together, I felt his love for me, and I knew he could feel my love as well."

"There was this weird phase right at first," Mike says with a slightly shy grin. "This awkward part, where we were both super-aware of who we were tongue-kissing. It was uncomfortable for...less than a minute, I suppose, and then I just got into it."

"I discovered that my son is an excellent kisser," Emily says, and the obvious embarrassment she feels is colored by pride and even excitement. "The oddness of it passed almost immediately, and once it was gone all I could feel was that it was a wonderful kiss that was getting better by the moment as we learned each other's motions. When he caressed my teeth with his tongue, I put the tip of my tongue against him and just felt him explore me. It was wrong, but it was also thrilling."

"In what way?" the interviewer asks.

"Because it had been almost 20 years since I'd kissed anyone but my husband," Emily replies. "And to be brutally honest, Bob was never a very good kisser. I'd forgotten how wonderful, how dizzying and breathtaking a simple kiss could be. And now, here I was with someone I loved as much as I could love, who was becoming a lover (although temporarily), and he was kissing me like I hadn't been kissed since before I'd met his father. No, I take that back -- I'd never felt that way while kissing, ever. My stomach was all in butterflies and I could feel myself relaxing all over and melting into him. It was the sort of kiss that could have seduced a stone, and I'm not made of stone. I had no chance before that kiss."

"My mom was hungry," Mike says. "That's the word I'd use. Once the awkwardness wore off she had her mouth so tight to mine that my lips got bruised. Seriously. She kissed me back, absolutely, and she did more, like when she sucked my tongue. She put her lips around it and suckled it deep into her mouth and then moved her tongue and her lips up and down it like she was giving it a blowjob. It felt amazing."

"Did that make you think of other things?" the interviewer inquires.

"Of course it did!" Mike nodded vigorously, a mischievous smile on his handsome face. "It made me think what that tongue and those lips could do on my cock. I couldn't help it, any guy would have thought the same thing in my place. From the way she was working my tongue, I knew she could give a blowjob that would make steam shoot out of my ears."

"That moment when I started to suck his tongue was the first time I felt his body...respond in an aroused fashion," Emily says delicately.

"What do you mean?" the interviewer asks.

"I felt his...penis...begin to harden against my stomach. Before then all I had felt was his muscles, and they were certainly hard, but now there was something else as well."

"How did that make you feel?"

Emily thinks seriously for a moment, then says, "It made me feel a very complex set of emotions, and I'm not positive that I can explain them. There was awkwardness first, because of the knowledge that I was arousing my own son and his erection was pressed between us. There was relief that I felt it begin to happen just from a kiss, because I had feared he might not be able to get aroused at all because of the fear and the unnaturalness of the situation, and that would undoubtedly have had very unpleasant consequences. Immediately after that reaction there came shame, for being glad I was giving my own son an erection, and indeed for giving him the erection in the first place. And then there was curiosity: I hadn't seen his penis since he was a little boy and I hadn't paid attention to it as he grew, and it was only natural that I wonder about it. How long it was, how thick, what it looked like, all of that was going through my head."

"Were you getting wet?" the interviewer asks.

Emily blushes, and it is apparent that she is genuinely uncomfortable with such frank and open discussions of sexuality. "Not yet, but I could feel myself relaxing to the point where I could become aroused. Again, I was surprised at that and relieved, because I hadn't thought I could with Mike -- which, of course, brought on the inevitable guilt that my son could arouse me in that way."

"The kiss was just getting hotter and hotter," Mike says. "We weren't just 'kissing' anymore, we were making out. Like, the kiss was something we were both getting into, something we were both enjoying and wanting more of. I was getting a hard-on, and I was like, do I pull back? Getting a hard-on from your mom is fucked up, right? But then I was like, no, why would I pull back from it? I had to get hard, and I had to put it into her when I was hard. I was going to be fucking her in a few minutes, so why be coy about having an erection?"

"Did she seem to enjoy it?" asks the interviewer.

"No, not at first," he says. "She didn't respond to it at all. And once I knew I wanted her to feel it, I was like, I want you to respond! I didn't want to be the only one out there on the limb of being turned on in this situation. So I let my hand drift down and I squeezed her ass. And my mom's a dancer -- she has an awesome ass, just as hard as a rock, muscular, full. Her cheek filled my hand perfectly and I squeezed it, then moved my hand down a little more so my fingers were underneath the cheek toward her crotch, and I pulled her into me."

Emily sighs in pleasant recollection. "When Mike touched my...bottom, and drew me in closer, I finally felt the first twinges of excitement. He's very strong, and he was very confident and certain in a way I hadn't expected him to be. It was a very possessive thing for him to do, and I enjoy being possessed during sex. In fact, I need to be possessed to enjoy it. I need to be dominated and controlled. I need to feel like the man is stronger and can overpower me, can make me do what he wants me to do, so that I'm free to be soft and feminine and yielding. I hadn't felt that with Bob in a very, very long time, so when Mike touched me in exactly that way and I could feel his strength and his assuredness and his command, my body simply reacted."

"Her nipples got hard," Mike says with a grin. "I felt them just pop right up where she was pressed against me, and she moaned a little into my mouth. I think it was then that I realized she was gonna be vocal during sex, but I had no idea how vocal! But she sort of wiggled against me and I got harder immediately, and she kind of whimpered. It was this sound of...it wasn't like she was begging me to fuck her yet or anything, but it was such a sexy goddamned sound, like this amazed little sound. And I felt like she was getting more turned on than she expected to."

"How did that make you feel?"

Mike opens his mouth to speak, reconsiders, and finally says, "Strong. Powerful. Good. Proud, I guess, most of all. I knew how painful and weird and traumatic this was going to be for us, and I knew she knew it too, so that when she made that turned-on little sound into my mouth and wiggled in closer, I knew I could make this good for her. I knew that it could be good sex."

"Mike has told me that I made a particular sound that excited him," Emily says, a twinkle in her eyes, "but of course I don't remember it. What I do remember instead is his...penis -- I have to get used to saying that. Penis. His penis. I felt his penis get bigger and harder and jump against me, against my stomach. I remember exactly how it felt against me in that moment, and the thrill I felt run through me when I realized that it was bigger than his father's."

"Are you a size queen?" the interviewer asks with a chuckle.

"A little," Emily admits with a conspiratorial grin. "When I'm filled, I like to be full. I like to be touched all the way along. I like all the nerves to be stroked, and Bob could never do that. It was hardly his fault, of course, but I'd missed it. In fact, I had forgotten it, since it had been more than 20 years since I'd been filled in that way, but when Mike's penis jumped against me and grew, I knew he could fill me the way I wanted. My heart just leaped -- and then I immediately felt ashamed again, of course."

"One of her hands went down my back and into my shorts," Mike says. "She had to push them down a little bit in back to get her hand on my ass, but she did. That was the first hint of undressing either of us showed. And when I felt her hand on my bare ass cheek, I got absolutely rock hard, full mast against her, and she wiggled in more so she could feel it. And I could tell from her kiss that she was liking how it felt because she kissed me even harder and hungrier, which I didn't even think was possible. I'd always heard the term 'soul kiss' and I'd had some pretty good kisses with girls before, but man...nothing like that. At all. That was the first time I actually felt like our souls were kissing, not just our bodies. And god damn but it felt amazing."

"I did take things to the next level," Emily nods. "It wasn't my first instinct, but he'd begun the kiss and it wasn't fair to him to expect him to take every step, so I touched skin. And I must admit, as a dancer I'm a tremendous fan of very firm buttocks, and Mike's were...strong and firm. Definitely strong and firm, and it did feel very nice in my hand. I could feel how athletic he was, and how...powerful."

"She did it first," says Mike, "and after all, we were both going to end up naked anyway, so I slid my hands between us and unbuttoned her shorts. Mom doesn't dress sexy usually, but she does like to wear shorts that show off her legs, so she was wearing tight, short shorts. I undid the button, and after a moment she shifted her hips back to let me get them off. I unzipped them, put a hand on each hip, and pushed them down over her ass and let them drop."

"I was wearing a pair of high-cut panties that were quite modest," Emily says. "I do enjoy sexier underthings when the occasion is right, but I certainly hadn't anticipated being in this situation. They were simple things, gray with white trim, not the sort of underwear that could get anyone excited. They were practical, I suppose."

"When I felt mom's ass in my hand, just covered in the panties, the whole thing got a lot more real," Mike says. "I mean it had always been real, but...I had just taken off her shorts and now I had her ass in my hands. There's a difference between knowing you have to do something and understanding you have to do it, and when I got her shorts off, that was when I really understood that I was going to have to have sex, with my mother, right here, in front of people who'd kill us if we didn't do what they wanted. And, um, it kind of made me dizzy."

"I felt him wobble against me," says Emily. "His knees got weak, his grasp loosened, his tongue faltered against mine. For a moment I thought he was actually going to fall. I very, very much didn't want that. I knew he would have recovered and gone on with what we needed to do, but he'd have embarrassed himself in front of the barbarians who were forcing us to do this. I didn't want my boy to embarrass himself. If we had to do this, I wanted us to do it with heads held high. I wanted him to be proud of himself regardless of what we had to do, because none of this was our fault. And so I held him closer with the hand that was on his bottom and the hand on his back, pulled my head away from his, looked in his eyes, and said --"

Cut to Mike, who says, "'I love you and I am so proud of you. I couldn't ask for a finer man to be with today. Don't falter now. Let's show them how much we love each other.'"

"How did that make you feel?" asks the interviewer.

"Strong," Mike says. "And like I needed to be strong, because she was going to be strong and I didn't want to let her down. I didn't want to embarrass myself, yeah, but I didn't want to disappoint her even more."

"So what did you do?" the interviewer asks.

Mike grins a bit sheepishly and shrugs. "I took off her shirt."

"I was wearing a rather baggy, comfortable tee shirt," Emily says, "and I didn't even realize he was taking it off of me until I had to lift my arms to let him, and at that point it was simply an automatic reaction. He had it over my head in an instant and tossed it to the side quite casually, as though he was telling the assembled beasts that we weren't going to be defeated by them. That gesture was...oh, it was thrilling! I was so proud of him in that moment!"

"The way she smiled at me," Mike recalls fondly. "She just beamed, her eyes were sparkling, and she just looked up at me and said, 'Kiss me.' So I did."

"I was standing in my underwear and a pair of flats, and yet somehow I didn't feel exposed," Emily muses. "With Mike there, with his arms around me and his lips on mine, it didn't matter that we had a hostile audience. We may as well have been on a deserted island by ourselves for all I noticed anyone else once his arms went around me and his lips met mine. And oh, that kiss!"

"The kiss was getting better," Mike says. "I didn't think it could get better from where it was before, but we just attacked each other. It was like our tongues were fighting each other, but damn it was the best kiss I've ever had, to this day. I don't know why it was so good, or how, but I still think about that kiss these years later, even after everything that's happened."

Emily is seen again, looking thoughtful. "I think it was because we both needed it to be perfect. It was a haven we were creating, a place we could find shelter in each other and in the love we shared. We needed to have a way to avoid the hostility around us, because when we actually listened to what was being said around us, it was quite appalling."

"There was a lot of shouting," Mike confirms with a shrug. "The kind of thing you'd expect from a bunch of worthless lowlife assholes who were forcing a son to fuck his mother for their amusement to avoid being murdered. The women were especially nasty."

"What were they saying?" the interviewer asks.

In a tone of disbelief, Mike says, "They were really critical of mom's body, which was weird to me. Mom's body was perfect -- is perfect. She's a goddamned professional dancer, you know? And not a tit-shaking stripper bimbo, but an actual dancer on an actual stage. All these bitches were calling my mom a slut, a skank, a whore. They were really mean about her boobs. All those nasty bitches had these big, ridiculous-looking fake tits, these things that didn't even jiggle when they moved, or else they were really plain, but mom's boobs are gorgeous, just gorgeous. They're small but they weren't sagging at all then, they were these pert, sweet little points that would make any man want to suck them right into his mouth."

"Did you want to suck them into your mouth?"

Mike shrugs again. "I was starting to think about it, yeah."

"I didn't really register what they were saying," Emily says. "It was pointless, hostile vulgarity. It wasn't worth listening to. I was aware that most of it was being directed toward me, but there was no reason to pay attention to it. Well...there was one woman, an older woman by the sound of her voice, who kept shouting for me to fellate my son 'like a good mother,' which stands out in my memory for some reason. And no, the language she used was hardly so delicate."

"The voice I remember most was a guy who kept shouting how much I was going to like it," Mike recalls. "He kept saying over and over, 'You're gonna love your momma's tight little pussy, boy, you're gonna love that tight little pussy.' How he knew she had a tight little one, I have no idea, but he seemed pretty sure of it."

"I was mostly naked by that point, just wearing underwear and shoes, and Mike was still fully clothed," Emily says. "We both needed to be naked by the end, so I took off his shirt. I remember some in the crowd were rather upset that I didn't try to make it erotic. It was very much a 'mom' sort of action, simply taking his shirt by the shoulders and tugging it up over his head as though he were still five years old. It was positively matronly!"

"When she got my shirt off, she sort of stepped back and looked at me," Mike says. "Belly button to chest, up and down and up again. She'd seen me shirtless tons of times, I mean like all the time. I walk around the house without a shirt all the time in the summer. But this was the first time she'd ever looked at me like that."

"Like what?" the interviewer asks.

"Sexually," is his simply answer.

"I'd been with Mike very nearly every day of his life, from the moment he was born," Emily says. "I watched him grow from squalling little thing to a fine young man, but a mother doesn't really see the kind of young man her son is becoming. Not...sexually. But now it was sexual, and so I stepped back and looked at him in that new way."

"Did you like what you saw?" the interviewer asks.

Emily smiles hugely and dazzlingly. "Oh my yes. He was still young, of course, and he would fill out, but...good heavens, yes, I liked what I saw. Somehow, without my really being aware of it, that squalling little baby had become a strong, fit, and very handsome man. I couldn't have been prouder of the man he was becoming, and...and I realized that, if I were being forced to do this with my son, I could have had much worse luck as to how that son was turning out."

"It was just pride that you felt?"

"Nnnnooooo," Emily admits with some reluctance. "Not just pride. Before the kissing and the touching, it would only have been pride, but with that, and with what we had to do...no, not just pride."

"I could see it then, in her eyes," Mike says softly. "She wasn't seeing me as a son anymore, or at least not only as a son. She was seeing me as a sexual partner. It was...very strange to see that look in my mom's eyes. Let's just say it wasn't something I thought I'd see when I got up that morning."

"How were you looking at her?" the interviewer asks.

"I don't know. I know I was seeing her in a new way. I don't know how much of that came through. We started kissing again, and she put her hands on my stomach, right above my jeans. Just rested them there. If she'd have seen my eyes then, she'd definitely have seen some desire."

"We stepped together again and his mouth went right to my earlobe and neck," says Emily. "This time he was more...well, I don't want to say confident because he'd been quite confident before, but this time he was more...certain of himself. There was no hesitancy in the way he kissed me, and there was no hesitancy in the way I responded."

"Which was...?" the interviewer asks.

"I moaned. I think my exact words were..." she trails off in embarrassment.

"What?" probes the interviewer. "What did you say?"

Emily is blushing crimson now. "I mentioned before that I don't curse in normal conversation. However, during sex, I do...talk dirty. Very dirty. At least, I do when I'm enjoying myself."

"So you were enjoying what you were doing?"

"Mike is incredibly skilled with his mouth," Emily says, her face now edging into maroon. "Even if I had tried not to enjoy myself, his kisses and his touches would have made me excited, and I wasn't trying not to enjoy myself."

"So what did you say?" the interviewer repeats.

"I said...ahem. I said, 'Fuck, baby, that feels so good.'" The words sound awkward and stiff coming out of her mouth, and she is plainly extremely uncomfortable saying them.

Cut to Mike, who is looking flabbergasted. "'Fuck, baby.' She said, 'Fuck, baby.' I never dreamed my mom talked dirty, but Jesus, get her wound up and she's...inventive. And filthy."

"Did you like it?"

Mike's wolfish smile is all the answer needed.

"His shorts and my bra came off at the same time," Emily says. "With what he was doing to me with his mouth, I don't think I even noticed him undoing my bra. It seemed...well, I hesitate to say this, given that he's my son, but it felt perfectly natural then that he take my bra off, and I immediately pressed myself into him. The...the sensation of skin on skin is one of the greatest pleasures in life, and I wanted to feel my breasts against his chest. I wanted to feel my nipples hard against his skin. I wanted to feel his heat. I wanted to feel his heart beating against mine.

"I didn't care then that he was my son. This had gone too far to stop. Even had the bikers told us we didn't have to continue, we would have gone on. I know we would have. I was...wildly excited. I could smell myself, my own arousal." It's apparent from the flare of her nostrils and the sparkle in her eyes that recollection of this event is making excitement overcome embarrassment, and her voice has lost all hesitation. "I hadn't been this aroused since before I was with his father. I know how awful that sounds, but it's the plain truth. My whole body was singing. I wanted my son."

"My mom has some amazing fingers," Mike says earnestly. "Once she decided to get rid of my shorts, man, they were gone before I knew it, down around my ankles. I was wearing a pair of boxer-briefs, and they were...tented out in the front. When she ran her fingertips over my bulge, when I felt them through the fabric tracing my length from the crown to the root, my cock just jumped against her, just leaped. For a second I thought I was gonna come right there."

Emily is looking quite intense. "I ran my fingers over him and I felt his penis jump against my fingers. Even through the fabric I could feel that he was absolutely steel-hard, so much that it must have been uncomfortable in his underwear. It was so...powerful! I know I keep using that word to describe him, but that was really the most amazing thing to me, how powerful he had become. There was so much strength about him, so much poise, so much desire, and it was all being unleashed onto me. It was irresistible, and by then I wasn't thinking of resisting anyway. I could feel the head of his co-- his penis through the fabric, so big and flaring, the length and girth of the shaft, even the vein down the underside, and his testicles so big and full. At first I only felt it with my fingertips, but it made me so...hot, all over. It was absolutely delightful."

"I wanted to touch her boobs," Mike says, then chuckles. "I mean...I'm a guy, I wanted to touch her boobs! I could feel her nipples digging into my chest, and that's so sexy, but she was glued to me so I couldn't touch her tits. So I did the next best thing, and slipped my hands inside her panties from behind. Her ass filled my hands, her skin was soft but her ass was so firm and taut and hot. She was just radiating heat all over, and, like, all I could do was think...um..." He trails off into an uncomfortable laugh.

"What did you think?" asks the interviewer.

"About how good it would feel inside that heat. To be inside her, the sensations of...being inside her." He laughs again rather awkwardly and spreads his hands.

"Did you feel any guilt for having those sorts of thoughts?"

He shakes his head. "No. I mean, not then. Part of me was just trying to hold my shit together and act with some dignity, because that seemed important at the time. But she was doing her best to turn me on and I was doing my best to turn her on and we were both succeeding, so most of my thoughts were about how good things were feeling and how much better they were going to feel."

"So it was all very natural?"

"Well..." he muses, "as natural as it could be. I'm not saying there weren't weird, awkward moments where one or both of us was like, 'Damn, I can't believe this shit is actually happening,' because I know there were those moments for me. But natural in the sense of a guy and a girl trying to get each other horny and succeeding and then acting on that horniness -- yeah, what could be more natural than that? That's what keeps people around generation after generation, getting each other horny and fucking. And once that's going on and both people are really into it, you don't think too much."

"His hands on my bare skin felt amazing," says Emily in tight closeup, where here arousal is becoming more obvious. "His skin on mine everywhere we were touching just felt electric, as though there were a current passing between us, as though there were sparks leaping off of us. He just kept pushing my panties down and suddenly I just wanted to be free of them, to be naked for him. Wanting him to be naked for me. Wanting to feel his hand go between my legs and touch me, finger me, slide fingers in deep so he could feel how wet I was, how ready I was for his cock." In her growing excitement, the vulgarity suddenly comes naturally off her tongue and she seems not to notice she's no longer using clinical terms. "He took one side of the waistband and I took the other and we pushed them down to the ground. I was naked...and I heard a lot of noise from the crowd, but I did everything I could to block it out and make Mike my whole world."

"I wanted to see her, to take a good look, but she was kissing me hard and running her hands all over me," Mike says. "There were four hands trying to get my underwear off so it took a bit, but when they went down over my hips and my cock sort of leaped free, it leaped right into her hand. That was one of those awkward moments I mentioned, realizing that my mom was stroking my hardon in front of like fifty psycho assholes, but...look, a gorgeous, horny woman was stroking my hardon. I didn't concentrate long on anything but that."

"I loved how he felt in my hand," Emily says. "Right from the instant he filled my palm, I loved his cock. It was thick, hot, velvety soft over steel hard, the perfect length, a magnificent mushroom head..." She licks her lips with ill-disguised hunger. "Feeling that cock in my hand was absolute bliss. I knew instantly that it would feel magnificent in my mouth and in my pussy. I knew."

"The crowd was really getting into it now that we were naked," Mike says. "Nothing they said is worth repeating, but they were...cheering us on, shall we say? But I didn't want to hear that, I didn't want to see it. I didn't want to know they were there. I just wanted her and me. I wanted her to touch me, I wanted to touch her, I wanted to do everything. I really, really didn't want it to stop. And I wanted to touch her like she was touching me. So I did."

"Mmmm," Emily sighs happily. "Mike has very good hands. Big, strong, dexterous, very clever, very certain of what they're doing. He put his hand over me at first and just cupped me. I remember feeling so glad that finally he could feel how hot he'd made me, how wet he'd made me -- how much he'd made me want him. I wanted him to know that it was all right for us to keep going. He didn't need to worry about hurting me or doing anything I didn't want, because I wanted him inside me. I wanted him."

"Mom was dripping," Mike says, sounding slightly in awe of the fact, or perhaps that he had been the cause. "I don't think I'd ever felt anybody get that wet, that turned on, and all I could think was that it was going to be sweet and slick inside of her. And Jesus, I wanted to be there. I ran my fingers up and down her slit and her lips just parted like she was hungry for contact. I slipped my middle finger up inside of her, pushed it in, and it was so smooth, like silk inside. I know I groaned. And then she clamped down on my finger."

"I'm a dancer," Emily laughs. "I need to be in great shape all over. I'd been doing my Kegels."

"She'd been doing her Kegels," Mike confirms with a grin. "She grabbed my finger like she'd caught it stealing and all I could do was think...'Damn, I hit the jackpot.' I started rocking my finger in and out, slowly, and she just lit up. Her whole body tensed at once, she went up on her toes, she started sucking on my tongue like it was a pacifier...it was amazing. God, I wanted her so much then!"

"From the moment he started using his fingers on me, I was at the edge of orgasm," Emily explains. "Right at the edge, which amazed me because I usually had a hard time coming -- a lot of times I never even came at all with Bob. I'd gotten used to not having a climax. But when Mike began fuck -- fingering me, it put me right to the edge, and the sensation was so thrilling! I'd just been entered and I was already about to come!"

"I knew she was loving it," says Mike. "Her insides were going nuts on my fingers and she was holding my arms so tight it actually hurt. Her whole body was telling me she was getting off on it, but I didn't know she was actually going to get off until she did." He grins and adds, "And that was pretty unmistakable."

"When the palm of his hand pressed against my clitoris, I came," Emily reports. "I went right up and over. It wasn't the biggest or best orgasm I'd ever had, or even the best I had that day, but it was so very fulfilling! I never expected it and yet it was there, rising up, spiraling out from the center of myself and just flowing out. God!"

"She screamed into my mouth, and her pussy slammed down on my finger like a vise," Mike recalls with a grin. "She wetted my hand to the wrist. I was like...'God damn, I just made my mom come!'"

"It wasn't the longest orgasm," Emily says. "It was short but very sweet, and it left me knowing I could have another one, a much bigger one, with very little prompting.

"It also left me rather wobbly," she adds with a chuckle, "which is why I sank to my knees."

Mike looks amazed. "Right to her knees. Right in front of me. She looked so beautiful that way!"

"I got a good look at his cock," Emily says, not even noticing the vulgarity. "It was perfect. I don't mean to suggest it was objectively perfect or the best one in the world, but it was perfect for me. Everything about it was just the way I'd always imagined the perfect cock to be. It was straight. It was thick. It was about nine inches long, which is ideal for me. The veins looked like they were chiseled from granite. The head was like a plum. His balls were heavy with cum. It was everything I'd ever wanted in a cock.

"I did the only thing that made sense in that moment: I looked up at him, I stuck out my tongue, and I licked up the bottom from root to head."

Mike still looks amazed. "Wow. I watched the pink tip of her tongue come out and I thought, "Nah, she's not gonna...' And then she made a cradle of her tongue and caressed the underside of my cock with it, all the way up, slow, just staring into my eyes the whole time...I...I can't even tell you how hot that was. I can still see it like it's happening right this moment."

"I like oral," Emily says, eyes sparkling. "Giving and receiving. It had been a long time -- years -- since I'd done it, so I was enjoying every second of feeling him on my tongue. I wanted him to enjoy it too."

"She went up and down, slow, three or four times, like my cock was so delicious she just wanted to savor every bit of it." Mike smiles at the memory. "In my experience, most girls don't like giving head. I mean, most don't mind it that much and they do it to make you feel good, but most girls don't like to do it. But mom's eyes were blazing and she was...worshiping my cock. She was loving it, loving doing it, loving how it felt and just the act of it. And I love oral too, getting and giving, so to be with someone who loved it as much as me was...wow."

Emily licks her lips with glee. "I loved how he looked. He was wholly into the sensations I was giving him, and because I wasn't receiving anything in return I could completely and utterly focus on what I was doing. I could do something with my mouth and immediately see the effects on his face and feel them through his cock, and that sort of instant feedback and...control, I suppose, is a very powerful thing. But at the same time, the power that I had was because I was submitting to Mike's desires and taking nothing for myself. In that moment I was giving myself to my son completely and yet that gave me power in the relationship -- the power to give him what he needed in that moment. And that's an incredibly seductive prospect."

"Did you continue with the oral sex?" the interviewer asks.

"Oh yes! Oh my, yes!" Angela laughs. "There was no way I was letting that perfect cock get away without feeling it in my throat! I opened my mouth and just looked up at him for a long moment with my mouth an inch away from the head, so that he could feel my breath on it. The look of longing on his face was...thrilling. And then I put my mouth around the head and slowly took him, inch after inch, all the way down until my nose was in his pubic hair and I had my lips pressed against his body. I looked up at him and I saw a magnificent vista of hard angles and planes across his abdomen and his chest, every muscle standing out perfectly with just a bit of shadow in the sunlight. He was so strong! And his face was so very...loving. So kind. So appreciative and hungry and sweet. We locked eyes, and...and I hadn't felt that loved, that adored, in a long time."

"When was the last time?" asks the interviewer.

Emily thinks for a moment, begins to speak, and then simply shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe never. Maybe I'd never seen any love so complete as I saw on my son's face in that moment. He loved me with everything he had and I gave it back to him with everything I had."

Mike reappears onscreen as the interviewer asks, "What was it like to have your mom on her knees performing oral sex on you?"

He shakes his head. "I wasn't thinking about her as my mom then. I mean I was, but I wasn't. Neither of us could think that way, it would have been too much. So I saw her as the gorgeous, naked woman sucking my cock so I could fuck her brains out. I mean, that was what I was trying to think. Like once or twice a minute I'd realize she was my mom, but I had to push that aside."

"Was that hard to do?"

He shrugs and grins. "Not as hard as it would have been if she wasn't sucking my cock better than I'd ever had it sucked before, or if I didn't know she was so wet for me she was dripping. I wanted to fuck her. Hell, at that point I don't think I was willing to be told no."

"And she's good at oral?"

"Ha! When she took me down her throat all the way and just parked her mouth there as she worked me over with her tongue and cheeks, just caressed every square inch of my cock at once, worked it, just adored it -- when she did that and she looked up at me with her amazing eyes...well, I'd never felt anything that good before."

"I could have sucked him all day and been happy," Emily purrs, "but I started feeling very, very...empty. I needed to be filled, and I needed to be filled by the most perfect cock I'd ever seen. It was in my mouth, I needed it in my pussy."

"After like five minutes, she took her mouth off me," Mike says. "She was still looking up at me, her hand around the base of my cock, and have one last slow lick all the way up, just teased the head with her tongue, and in the sweetest, sexiest voice I've ever heard, she asked --"

"'Will you fuck me, baby?'" Emily asks, her voice pitched husky and needful. "'Will you fuck me hard and deep and not stop until you make me scream for your cum?'"

"You asked that?" the interviewer asks, amused disbelief in her voice.

"Those were the words I used, as best as I can recall," Emily laughs merrily. "I told you I talk dirty during sex, and I was just getting started."

"It wasn't just you being vocal in your pleasure like they'd told you to?" the interviewer asks.

"I had that in mind," Emily acknowledges. "I needed to be loud for the amusement of the savages. But when I'm enjoying sex, I am loud and I do talk dirty. It wasn't a stretch for me to say those things – they just came naturally out of my mouth."

"So," the interviewer asks, "what did Mike do?"

Mike again. "I didn't say anything. I just kicked together our clothes to make someplace to lie down, and she did. Flat on her back. And then she stuck her legs out straight and then spread them wide...wider..."

We see a film clip of Emily dancing onstage, finishing a whirling leap with a splits that drops her crotch to the floor. She can certainly spread her legs when she has a mind to.

"Lying there in the sun, naked, sweat glistening on her body, her pussy just shining with wetness, her hair like gold," Mike sighs. "It was so beautiful. She was so beautiful. So amazingly...inviting."

"And then?" the interviewer asks.

"And then I got down on my knees between her legs and lowered myself onto her."

"He didn't go inside me," Emily says. "Not yet. He just covered me with himself and put his skin on mine. It felt...divine. I love having a man on top of me, the sensation, the weight, knowing that he and I were going to be joined in the most perfect way possible...and then he kissed me. It was the most possessive kiss I've ever had, before or since. At that moment I belonged to him, body and soul, all of me, and he belonged to me."

"She wrapped her arms around me and held me close, like a second skin," Mike says. "I could feel her hands on my back, her fingernails -- she doesn't keep her fingernails long but I could feel them digging into my skin like she was urging me on. My cock was against her thigh, her upper thigh a couple inches from her pussy, and even there she was so wet! I shifted my hips a bit and brought the head up to her lips."

Emily gasps, a sharp intake of breath as she recalls the scene. "Ohhhhh. Oh. The first time I felt his cock against my cunt." It's impossible to imagine that she would use that word when she wasn't excited, but it's somehow impossible to imagine her using any other word now. "That big, hungry head right against my lips. I knew my juices were getting onto his cock and I could just hold the image in my mind of him moving against me and the head of that magnificent cock coming away glistening in the sunlight, glistening with something I'd put there, something that could have come only from me." She closes her eyes and almost purrs.

"I normally tease a little bit," Mike says. "You know, rub a girl's pussy with my cock, get the tip wet and then rub her clit. It makes both of us want it more. But I couldn't have wanted it any more than I already did, and neither could she. Her hips were already moving, grinding, trying to get me inside. She was whimpering into my mouth. All I had to do was shift a little more and I slipped right in."

Emily gasps and her eyes fly open; she is incredibly aroused. "Oh God! That first second when he pushed inside me! The way the head opened me and then suddenly I swallowed him up and he was giving it to me, inch after inch! It felt like it took an eternity. It really did. It felt like he'd never finish giving me his cock, and I wanted it all. I wanted every millimeter. I didn't want anything left outside, I wanted it all in me, inside me where I needed it, where he needed it. And every little bit that he gave me felt better and better and better, sliding in so deep and still giving me more."

She's actually breathing heavily now. "And then I felt him bump up against my cervix and I knew that when he came, he'd be coming right into my womb. Right into my womb. And then I felt his balls against me and I knew I'd taken him all, and I knew we fit. We fit perfectly, absolutely perfectly. I couldn't take anymore at exactly the instant he had no more to give. It was like we'd been made for each other."

Mike is flushed but smiling, with only a trace of awkwardness. "When I got inside of her, all the way inside, it felt incredible, better than any pussy I'd had, but...it was one of those moments when I realized what I was doing. It was like, 'Dude, you're seriously fucking your own mom right now.' I got so dizzy, just for a second! I think if I'd have been standing up I'd have fallen over."

"What did you do then?" the interviewer asks, and a little eagerness is audible in her voice.

He laughs. "Well then she squeezed me with her pelvic muscles and she wasn't my mom anymore! So I started fucking her."

Emily is painfully aroused by now. "In and out...it's such a simple thing, just in and out. But it was so exquisite! He was moving inside me and he was touching every nerve I had, stroking them in perfect rhythm, over and over, driving into me, pushing me back against the ground. I was already screaming into his mouth. I'm also a screamer." She doesn't seem bothered by the admission. "And when he took his mouth off mine, I started to talk dirty."

"No, it wasn't dirty talk," Mike corrects. "It was filth. Magnificent filth."

"What was she saying?" the interviewer asks.

"What wasn't she? 'Fuck me hard, pound my cunt!'"

"'Hammer me you fucker!'" Emily adds. "'Slam that cock up into me!'"

"'Harder, fuck me harder!'" Mike continues. "'Fuck me like I'm your slut!'"

"'I'm your whore, your cocksucking slut bitch, use me! Use my cunt!'"

"'Fuck me you motherfucker, fuck your mother!'" Mike says, nostrils flaring. "Hammer me like the horny cunt I am! Fill me!'"

"'Come in me!'" Emily nearly shouts. "'I want your cum so fucking bad, pour it into me! Give it to me, every drop! Empty your balls in me!'"

"And how much of this was because the gang had told you to be vocal?"

Emily smirks and says, "Not a single bit. By that point it was all me."

"Every word made me hotter," Mike says. "I'd never fucked anyone so hard before, and she just kept begging for it harder and harder."

"He was hammering me so hard that I felt my bones shaking inside my skin, and it still wasn't enough," Emily says. "I had never in my life been that aroused. Everything felt good, even what hurt. Perhaps especially what hurt. And all I could think was 'more," more cock, more fucking, harder, deeper, faster. In fact, I wasn't thinking at all then. My body was in complete control and my mind had gone somewhere else."

"When she crossed her ankles behind my back and locked me in, just squeezing my cock with her muscles as I ground against her, I knew I wasn't going to last long. I couldn't. I couldn't even understand how I'd lasted as long as I did."

"I was just babbling for his cum, yelling myself hoarse," Emily says. "I don't think I was making a bit of sense, just saying dirty words. I could've come the moment he entered me or at any moment after that, but I needed to wait for him. I needed to wait for his seed inside me before I came."

"I tried to say I was going to come," Mike says. "I think I got out, 'I guhhhkuuu' or something, like I was just trying to figure out words. When I came I gave a groan that came from the soles of my feet and all the way up, and I just exploded. I just exploded into her."

"His cum," Emily marvels, breathless. "Oh God. I could feel his whole body just coil like a spring. I grabbed his cock with my cunt muscles and squeezed as hard as I could, and that was what did it. If I'd have heard that sound come out of him at any other time, I'd have sworn he was injured. But his cock was jumping inside of me like a thing alive and I knew he was giving me what I needed. I knew he was pouring his seed straight into my cervix, as deep inside me as he could go. After the first time his cock jumped, I came."

"She bit me," Mike laughs, pointing to a spot on his shoulder just to the side of his neck. "She had her mouth pressed to me and she actually bit me when she came. It didn't hurt. I knew she was just spasming. Her body was as rigid and stiff as a mannequin, but her insides were dancing. I'd never known she could dance inside too, but...damn. She does. She really does."

"I didn't even know where I was," Emily laughs. "I didn't even know who I was! There was just this gut-wrenching climax that was so strong it almost hurt. It was right at the farthest edge of pleasure, right where my body was telling me it couldn't take anything stronger, and it just held there, and held there, and held there. I think I thought I was dying and I didn't care."

"It was the best sex I'd ever had," Mike says simply.

"I didn't know I could feel those sensations," Emily says, shrugging helplessly. "I didn't know that the human body was capable of producing them. I'd never been one for romance novels that talk about that kind of thing, and I'd certainly never experienced anything like it myself. It was...revelatory. It was the sort of thing that one can never forget about once one experiences it."

"So then what?" the interviewer asks.

"For a long time I lay there, eyes closed, completely limp. He was still inside me. I could feel the froth we'd made leaking from me. I felt the sun. I heard voices but nothing was really making sense. I couldn't piece together where I was or even who I was with -- my mind kept telling me it was my son and then rejecting the possibility, over and over again."

Emily sighs deeply. "And then I opened my eyes and saw him, my baby boy. He was on top of me. He was inside me. He'd put his sperm inside me. We'd had sex. And that was when the guilt fell from the sky in waves and began crashing over me."

"Once the...what the urgency of it was over, I started to think," Mike says. "And that wasn't a good thing. I mean, it was a good thing because we needed to think and deal with what we'd done, but...man. It was not good."

"What do you mean?" the interviewer asks.

"All right, it wasn't our fault that we'd had sex, right?" Mike asks. "We did what we had to do, and we had to do it because psychopaths made us do it. If we'd gotten right back to the road that morning and gone on our way to the wedding, we weren't going to decide to fuck just because. I'd never, ever thought about her like that and I'm pretty sure she'd never thought about me like that. It's not like we were going to suddenly start ripping each other's clothes off.

"But once we'd been forced into it, we'd gotten into it. We clicked. You can make out with someone without getting as caught up in it as we did. You can even have sex with someone without really liking it, that happens all the time. But that wasn't how it was with us. From the time we started touching each other, it was awesome. I mean, I didn't just like it, I loved it. I loved it. And there was no doubt she did too. So yeah, they made us do it, but us getting off so hard on it? That was all on us."

Emily looks very somber and thoughtful, and is not looking directly at the camera. "I had begged my son to ejaculate inside me, and it was the most blissful and transcendent experience of my life when he did. I had no idea that level of sexual compatibility was even possible, but everything either of us did felt perfect, almost...well, I hesitate to use the word because I don't believe in it, but it almost felt foreordained. Inevitable. How could that much of a potential connection exist between two people who were so close to each other and not eventually demand exploration?"

"Do you think you'd have eventually gotten together if this hadn't happened?" the interviewer asks.

"No," Emily says with a decisive shake of her head. "I know that sounds self-contradictory, but under what circumstances would Mike and I ever have come to know that that compatibility existed? Logically, of course, I knew that. But knowing that and believing it were two very different things when I was forced to confront the actuality of the attraction and the concrete reality of what we'd done with each other...to each other. And, more importantly, confronting the fact that my own son was the best lover I'd ever had by a considerable margin, and I was the best he'd had."

"But if it wasn't your fault --"

Emily cuts the interviewer off with a violent shake of her head, making her unruly hair jump. "No. I had begged my son to do things to me. Do you understand that? I had begged him to do unspeakable things to me because, in that moment, I needed him more than I ever knew I could need anyone. I had begged him to ejaculate inside me because the idea of not receiving his seed was, in that instant, both physically agonizing and heartbreaking. I had never shared anything even remotely approaching that with any lover I'd ever had -- and certainly not with my husband, the father of my children."

"And now that thing was between us," Mike says. "I mean, if we'd have struggled with it, like if I'd had a hard time getting it up and she couldn't get went and it had been awful and painful and awkward...that would have been normal. That's how it should have been between a mom and a son. But it was so good that we both knew it would always be there, always right there, and even if we never talked about it again, and right then I was hoping we wouldn't, we'd both have to go through life knowing that the greatest sexual experience either of us had ever had came at the hands of other. And how were we supposed to go on like that?"

"Did you think you might be pregnant?" the interviewer asks Emily.

Emily shakes her head. "That didn't occur to me for some time. I was rather overwhelmed by what we'd done, so I wasn't able to think very much about possible consequences. I don't think it even crossed my mind for an hour or two, and when it did I dismissed it immediately. I thought I'd ovulated several days before, so even if I was wrong by a day or two I was still safe."

"Were you on birth control?"

"No. I have side effects of birth control medications -- nausea, dizziness, weight gain, that sort of thing. If I had a desk job, I suppose I would have simply done my best to ignore those symptoms, but they were of course impossible for a dancer." She pauses, then adds, "And besides, I really didn't need it. For the past several years, there had been essentially no danger."

"What did you do then?" the interviewer asks Mike.

"It was a weird situation," he says. "Not only had I just fucked my mom and come inside her, but I was still in her when we both sort of realized what we'd done. Pulling out of your mom isn't something you can just do, you gotta put some thought into it. I think we apologized to each other about fifty times in the next minute, and then I finally pulled out of her and got up."

"Oh dear," Emily sighs resignedly. "There was a flood when he pulled away, and the smell of sex was...overpowering. He was very polite and he helped me up and offered me my clothes before he began dressing, but there was so much...of him, running down my legs, all the way to the ankles. I'd never had so much inside me before. I was a disgusting mess."

"Did you clean up?" the interviewer asks.

"I asked to," Emily replies. "I asked one of the women; I supposed that feminine compassion would be more likely to be productive than asking a man. Unfortunately, she was...stunningly vulgar and cruel."

"This tattooed bitch with bolt-ons looks my mom up and down and just smirks," Mike says, "and then says, 'You were just begging your son to come up inside that mommy-cunt you got, so enjoy it.' Everyone around us laughed. So I handed her my underwear and let her use that."

"After that response, I was hardly about to ask to use the bathroom," Emily sniffs. "No one seemed to be paying us much attention at the moment, so I walked behind a parked car and cleaned myself up as best I could and then put clothes on. I knew there was going to be a great deal of...seepage, and my shorts were light-colored and it would certainly show, but I wasn't about to go without them."

"I got dressed," Mike says. "I guess I expected the shit to continue. I figured they just weren't done with us, you know? I thought they'd...I don't know, kick the shit out of us, rape, threaten at least. Maybe make me and mom go again. But it was weird, because they were just sort of...ignoring us."

"Ignoring you?" the interviewer asks. "Really?"

"Yeah. I mean the bitch said that to mom, but only after mom said something to her," Mike says. "A couple of guys came up to me and slapped me on the shoulder and told me I'd done a good job fucking my mom, but...it sounds weird, but I didn't think they were fucking with me. I thought they were actually congratulating me. I mean, how fucked up is that? And after that they just sort of left us alone and started fussing over the pig they had roasting."

"I did not anticipate the indifference," Emily says. "After forcing us to copulate and make a spectacle with each other, I assumed they'd continue to torment Mike and me. I thought they'd harass us at the very least, but they simply ignored us for a time, with the exception of offering us each a beer."

"You let your 18-year-old son drink a beer?" the interviewer asks.

Emily snorts. "Given the circumstances, it seemed trivial."

"There was a log thing, a split log they used as a bench," Mike says. "Mom and I sat on one end of it and drank beer and tried to figure out what to say to each other. I asked her if she was OK and she said yes. She told me that nothing we'd done was our fault, which was technically true, and that I shouldn't feel bad about it, which was complete bullshit. And then we just kind of stopped talking."

"Why?" the interviewer asks.

"It was hard to find a topic," Mike says dryly. "We couldn't discuss even the near future because we had no idea what was going to happen to us, and I couldn't really say, 'Wow mom, you're an awesome lay.'"

"I was focusing on what a terrible human being I was," Emily says simply. "Mike was still a child, so nothing that went on between us could be blamed on him. I was the adult and the parent. It had been up to me to maintain proper boundaries even in this situation, and I had failed utterly. I didn't believe we could ever recover. I thought he would never want to speak to me again."

"We sat there for...half an hour, maybe," Mike says. "Then the bikers started laying out a feast, a real picnic feast. It was the damnedest thing. They kept bringing food out of the house, all kinds of salads and side dishes and stuff, and they started carving that pig. When they started cutting the meat, that was when the smell hit me. I was so hungry my stomach roared."

"Surprisingly, they offered us food," Emily says. "We were told to serve ourselves. By that point it was about 3:30 in the afternoon and we were both quite hungry, so we ate. The pork was delicious, and I thought the baked beans were particularly good."

"You had an appetite after everything?" the interviewer asks.

"I was ravenous," Emily replies. "I felt as though I hadn't eaten for two days. I'm afraid I made quite a pig of myself, but no one objected. They were worse."

"I had two more beers, and I know mom had at least one," Mike tells us. "We didn't really talk to anybody because we didn't want to stir anything up, but the whole vibe had gotten...well, not friendlier, but less hostile. It felt like we were crashing their barbecue, not like they were getting ready to mess us up. I was starting to think we might actually make it out of there."

"When we were done eating, I asked to use a bathroom again," Emily says, "and I was told to, and I quote, 'Piss in the bushes if I was so damned prissy.' So that's exactly what I did."

"I just came back from taking a leak, and mom was back," Mike says, "when their leader, that Petey guy, comes over and sits next to us, asking us how we liked the meal and joking like we were best buddies or something. And then he started telling us about the law enforcement around there."

"He informed us that the Sheriff of the county was 'in his pocket,' as it were, there would be no investigation if we reported this incident to the police," says Emily. "He was also of the opinion that, since we were physically unharmed and had...'had a good time,' we should be grateful, chalk it up to a learning experience, and be on our way. Since several gang members would be traveling into Pinedale after dinner, he told us they would be so kind as to drive us to a service station, and he gave us directions to tell the tow truck driver for how to get back to Lou." She pauses, then adds, "He also demanded that we thank him. We didn't think it wise to refuse."

"Fifteen minutes later we were in the back of an SUV heading for town," Mike tells us, still sounding surprised by the turn of events. "They stopped off at the minivan and we got our luggage, anything we wanted to take, and they drove us on in."

"They played the worst music I have ever heard," Emily says indignantly. "It was nothing but screeching guitars and bass and screaming. And they played it so loudly!"

"It was, ah, it was all right," Mike says. "It meant we didn't have to talk."

"They were going to drop us at the service station," Emily tells us, "but there was a motel down the street, and I asked them to drop us there because I absolutely required a shower at the earliest possible moment. The clerk only charged us half price when we told him we were only going to use the bathroom. The place was dingy and a little grimy, and I certainly didn't trust the linens, but as I said, I needed a shower."

"I didn't want to stay in the room when mom was using the shower," Mike shrugs. "I couldn't. I needed to put some distance between us, if only because I didn't want to think about her naked with water running over her. I just took a walk down to the station and arranged for the tow truck driver to run out and pick up the minivan, and then I walked around for a few minutes. It was...hard to go back to the room where mom was. I just didn't know what the hell to say."

"I took a very long shower," Emily says. "The water didn't get nearly as hot as I wanted for my...my mental health, I suppose. I wanted to scald my skin off. I wanted to come out new."

"Did you?" the interviewer asked.

"No," Emily says, shaking her head with a rather sad smile.

"I got some food from a grocery store," Mike says. "Some kaiser rolls, cheese, cold cuts. Some mini carrots -- mom loves carrots -- and some pears. When I came back mom was sitting on the bed, already dressed, brushing her wet hair. She didn't even look up at me when she told me she wanted to sell Lou to the tow truck driver."

Emily reappears as the interviewer says, "You loved your minivan."

Emily nods.

"Why did you sell it?"

"I couldn't get back inside it ever again," Emily says. "When I thought of it, all I could think of was the accident and what it led to. What we'd been forced to do. How could I drive that? How could I carry my husband and my daughter in that vehicle? How could I ever ride there again with Mike?"

"So what did you do?" the interviewer asks.

"I walked to the service station and arranged to sell Lou in return for it being towed. I didn't even want any money for it. I just needed to be done with it forever."

"We still needed to get to the wedding," Mike says. "We ended up paying a 16-year-old kid $200 to drive us to the airport in Salt Lake City. He was a nice kid and he kept trying to talk to us, but we weren't really in the mood. I don't think we said ten words."

"There was a 7:25 from Salt Lake City to San Francisco the next morning," Emily tells us. "We bought tickets and got two cheap motel rooms so we wouldn't have to sleep together. Then I took a taxi to an all-night pharmacy and bought a douche. Then later, sitting alone in my bed, I called my husband."

"Did you tell him about what had happened?" the interviewer asks.

"I told him we'd had an accident," Emily explains. "I told him the van was totaled and Mike and I were shaken up but all right. I told him we'd walked to a road, flagged down a passing police officer, and then arranged to finish our trip by air."

"You didn't tell him about the Visigoths, or what you and –"

"No!" Emily says emphatically. "How could I tell him that I had been forced to fornicate with our son, that I had taken his sperm inside me? What words could I possibly have used for that? And how on Earth could I possibly have told him that, knowing that his son had given me more pleasure in a single sexual encounter than he had given me in at least the last ten years combined? What was I supposed to say to him? And...my God, what was I supposed to say to Mike?"

Mike comes onscreen again as the interviewer asks, "What did you and your mom talk about on the flight?"

"We didn't talk."

"Not at all?"

"No," Mike says with a shake of his head. "Neither of us said a single word."

The screen goes black for a moment, and then a picture of the gang hideout appears with the legend, "In December of that year, the Visigoths' methamphetamine lab exploded and burned the building to the ground. Five gang members and two associates were killed in the fire."

The picture is replaced by the mugshot of Petey, along with the legend, "The following July, almost exactly a year to the day after the events described in this documentary, Douglas 'Petey' Hounslow lost control of his motorcycle while driving on a mountain road during a rainstorm. He skidded over a cliff into the Green River and was killed."

The credits roll.

Folie a Deux, Episode 02
Can Mike and Emily deal with the aftermath?  
Reaction to the first chapter in this ongoing story was polarized. Some loved it and others didn't - and the ones who didn't really didn't! Most of the objections concerned the format of the story, since some folks didn't like the documentary transcript style (or even the first person narration). I assumed this would be the case, since it's dramatically different from anything else I've read - and that's one of the reasons I wanted to write it this way! I'd started this story a dozen different ways before I thought of this, and this seemed to me to be the ideal vehicle for blending the accounts of several unreliable narrators with some objective evidence of their relative truthfulness (based on their reactions to the unseen interviewers). This was an experiment for me to see if this format worked for a story; I write for an audience of one, but since I liked the results I decided to share it. That means that this and all future chapters in this story will be in the same format. Other stories I might write in the future may or may not be, but that depends wholly on what works best for the story in question. Also, if this tickles your fancy and you'd like to try a story of your own with this sort of format, I strongly encourage it, since it's at once liberating and confining in such a manner as to stimulate creativity.

*****

Folie à Deux

Episode 2: Homecoming

By Senor Smut

The screen is black as we hear a man speak. The voice is young, strong, vibrant, and deep, with a solid Midwestern accent. "I've never been as uncomfortable as I was with mom over the next few days. How could we discuss what we did? How could we not discuss what we did?"

We now see a closeup of a young man against a black background. He is white, in his early 20s at the most, and very handsome. His face is composed all of bold lines, from his high cheekbones to his striking jawline and his cleft, pointed chin. His mouth is a thin line that shows a certain determination and strength of character, while his icy blue eyes hint at depth and reserves of intelligence and thoughtfulness. His hair is short, straight, and dark.

Below, we see the legend Mike Larsen.

"There was a massive thing between us now, and neither of us could figure out a way to get our arms around it," he continues. "I knew that if we didn't figure it out, I mean just how to live with it, it was going to tear our family apart. And I didn't have the first idea how to begin."

Mike disappears, replaced by a black screen with the words:

Folie à Deux

Episode 2: Homecoming

The title is replaced by another familiar face: a woman in her early 40s who bears a striking family resemblance to Mike, but for her generous lips, her dark eyes, and especially her wild mane of untameable blonde locks. She's wearing a red shirt with a narrow collar, hinting that this is a different day from the first interview.

Her name is given as Emily Larsen.

"The next several days were more awkward for me than actually doing what the Visigoths had forced us to do," she relates. "When we were there and being forced to have sex in front of the gang, we didn't focus on anything but the moment. We simply couldn't afford to. We had to do what we were told under threat of death, and when one is in that sort of a situation one doesn't have the luxury of looking ahead. We were forced to focus on the moment."

Mike reappears, looking pensive. "In the moment, there was nothing but the moment. I mean, the furthest ahead I could think was to the period immediately after we got done having sex, where I didn't want my mom to be thinking 'Damn, that was bad sex in addition to being sex with my son.' That was, like, as far ahead as my mind could even conceive of. And once we got done, it was like...my mind still couldn't conceive of anything after that sex. It was like we were both stuck there."

"Looking back on it, it was very clearly a mistake not to address it right away," Emily says. "I think, had we talked during that short period after we'd finished having sex but before the bikers drove us into town, we'd have been able to find words much more easily. We were both traumatized, however, and rather...lost in our own thoughts. It was difficult to find words that didn't feel trite or tremendously inappropriate. And of course, the longer we let the silence go, the more difficult it was to breach it."

Mike is rubbing his chin and looking to the side. "I remember...uh...I remember sitting on the airplane, sitting right next to mom, and absolutely not knowing the first word to say. Like not even how to start the first sentence. I kept opening my mouth and - well, no, I kept thinking about opening my mouth and then not doing it because whenever I thought about talking to her, I could feel my throat squeeze closed. Seriously."

"Whenever I thought I knew how to start a conversation," Emily says, "I would remember what we did. It wasn't simply that we'd done it. We'd loved it. I'd begged him in the most obscene terms possible. It seemed humiliating simply to start a conversation."

"So yeah, whole flight, not a word," Mike sighs. "We land, I called dad to tell him we'd arrived safe and everything. Said we'd meet him at the hotel. Then mom and I waited for our bags. Just...stood there. Not talking. Not even looking at each other, because every time I looked at her all I could see was her down on her knees, naked with my cock in her mouth. So we just...stared."

"The taxi ride to the hotel was silent," Emily says. "For a time I was lost in a sort of...a fugue, I suppose, reliving the event to the extent that I was even smelling what I'd smelled the day before, the urine smell of the drug lab and the roasting pork."

"How were those recollections making you feel?" asks an offscreen voice. This interviewer is male with a slight English accent and he sounds older than the woman who interviewed the pair in the first episode.

"That was a very interesting thing, because they were making me feel very nearly the opposite of what I felt at the time," Emily says. "As it was going on, I was caught up in a spiral of lust that quickly got out of control. My son is an exceptional lover and we both managed to lose ourselves in the moment. However, as I relived it, all I could feel was shame and self-loathing."

"Did you feel loathing toward Mike?" the interviewer asks.

"No, of course not," she says, though a quaver in her voice indicates that the answer may be more complex than that.

"How did I feel toward mom then," Mike muses, then exhales heavily. "I felt...I felt like she was...I don't know. I did feel bad for her, because in the house I grew up in there's no hiding loud noises and I'd never, ever heard her make sounds like I made her make. So, like, she wasn't getting that from dad at all. But then I started wondering if that made me a better lover than my dad, and when you start wondering whether your mom thinks you're a better lay than your dad is, you've gone down a real weird fucking road. So basically whenever I started to think about her, I'd force myself to think of something else, but I couldn't think of anything else for more than about thirty seconds before I'd start thinking about her again."

"Did you want to have sex with her again?" the interviewer asks.

"Not then!" Mike laughs. "I wasn't even sure I could ever look at her again. Fucking her was the last thing I had on my mind."

"I didn't want to have sex with Mike again," Emily says, "but I couldn't stop thinking about it. It had been extraordinary - revelatory, as I said last time. I found I was relieving specific moments over and over again. They were just instants, really, sensations or impressions."

"Such as?" the interviewer asks.

"Well...just little things," Emily says uncomfortably, her awkwardness when discussing sex in full play. "Things he did or things I felt. Things that were different from what I was used to. Certain comparisons were inevitable, and I felt incredibly guilty making them but I couldn't help myself."

"Why not?"

Emily looks truly uncomfortable, and she shrugs.

"When we got to the hotel," Mike says, "I think it was the first time either of us realized that we were about five minutes from seeing dad and Olivia. I...I freaked, I'll be honest. I had a straight-up panic attack."

Emily still looks shaken. "When we pulled to a stop and I looked up and saw the rather severe white facade of the Hotel Whitcomb and realized that my husband and daughter were waiting for us inside, I felt as though someone had punched me in the stomach. And then I..."

"And then you what?" the interviewer asks.

"Mom opened the cab door and puked on the sidewalk," Mike chuckles, "so at least I handled it better than she did! Not like I handled it well or anything. I sort of hyperventilated."

"In the time since we'd...in the time since it had happened, I had thought almost continuously about how I would ever face Mike again," Emily says. "I had thought very little about how I would face Bob or Olivia. Somehow, seeing them again always felt distant, even when we were on the way to the hotel. And now I was faced with seeing them in moments and I didn't have any idea what to say or do."

"I didn't even really know what mom had told dad," Mike says. "I knew she'd told him we had an accident but I didn't know if she'd told him anything else, or what. I mean, we hadn't discussed it, right? But it was going to be obvious that something had happened between us, something really big and really traumatic, and I didn't know what the hell to tell dad or Olivia."

"The doorman helped me out of the taxi," Emily says. "I'm afraid I didn't stop to say anything to Mike. I know I should have, but suddenly all I could think about was the foul taste in my mouth. I went inside and immediately went to the restroom to try to clean up."

"I paid the taxi and made sure the porters got everything inside," Mike says. "But I was still, like, panicking. My heart was just hammering and my mind was racing. I couldn't think of anything to say or do. I knew mom went to the bathroom and I absolutely no way wanted to be the first one up to the rooms. But then it was weird to wait for her because I didn't even want to look at her, much less talk to her. So I paid the porter a twenty to take the bags up to the rooms and I went for a walk."

"You sent the bags up but you didn't go up yourself?" the interviewer clarifies, sounding incredulous.

"Yeah, I went out," Mike nods. "Walking. Walking around. Just...walking."

"For how long?"

Mike shifts a bit and looks embarrassed as he says, "Um...four hours. Closer to five."

"When I got out of the restroom about...half an hour later, I didn't see Mike or the bags," Emily says. "I naturally assumed he'd gone up first with the luggage and had already seen his father and sister. That was when my telephone rang. Bob was wondering where we were - he said the bags had been brought up twenty minutes before but neither of us were there, and he was worried."

"What did you say?"

"I didn't know what to say," Emily shrugs. "I didn't know where Mike had gone. I thought he might have run off - run away, I mean - so as not to face me. To face the family. I'm afraid I got rid of Bob very brusquely and called Mike."

"I actually had my phone turned off," Mike said. "On the way in the taxi the buzzing from texts and Facebook and shit was driving me nuts, so I turned it off. I didn't even think about how it would all play, with the luggage showing up and then mom showing up sometime after and me not showing up at all. I really wasn't thinking at all."

"When he didn't answer his phone, I..." Emily paused, thinks for a moment, and then laughs. "I lost my mind. I began...making a fuss."

We now see a closeup of a man who appears to be in his early-to-mid 40s. He is handsome with icy blue eyes that resemble Mike's. His hair is dark brown except for several strands of gray at the temples; this, coupled with the care lines around his eyes, give him an air of weary wisdom. He looks familiar to those who saw Episode 1, and his identity is confirmed when he is given the name Bob Larsen in a subtitle below his face.

"I'd been worried the night before, when I heard about the accident," Bob says in a deep, steady voice. "Emily called me and she sounded very shaken up, very upset. At the time I thought it was due to the wreck of the minivan she loved so much - she really did have a love affair with that vehicle. She told me the accident wasn't bad, but I assumed she was minimizing it to keep me from worrying, which is a habit she's always had. Anyway, I was looking forward to seeing her in the morning.

"I knew something really odd was going on when the suitcases showed up without either her or Mike," Bob continues. "It was Emily and me in one room and Mike and Olivia in another, and Olivia thought it was pretty odd too, so after we waited a few more minutes I called Emily. When she freaked out and basically hung up on me, I knew something more had happened than just a car accident - of course, I had no idea what. Then about five minutes later, hotel staff called and told me my wife was making a scene in the lobby."

"I recall...talking loudly," Emily says judiciously. "I demanded that the staff notify the police that my son was missing, and when they explained that he had apparently left of his own volition, I demanded that they send someone to look for him. I freely admit that I may not have been entirely rational at that moment."

"When the elevator doors opened in the lobby," Bob says, "the first thing I heard was Emily screaming. Now, Emily isn't a screamer, so hearing that, I knew that there was something going on that I didn't know about. I tried to get her calmed down, but she was...irrational."

"It was all coming out," Emily says. "The emotion, I mean, not the facts. I had been keeping all of the anxiety and fear and pain and confusion bottled up very tightly inside. I hadn't even allowed myself to speak to the only person who understood the situation - Mike - and now I was confronted by hotel staff who had absolutely no idea what I was going through and all of those emotions...exploded out of me."

"What were you thinking?" the interviewer asks.

"I don't believe I was thinking," she shrugs.

"Not at all?"

"I wanted my son there," she replies. "I wanted to know where he was at the very least. I imagine it was the motherly instinct of protection acting in a...maladaptive manner."

"Explain?" the interviewer probes.

"I had failed to protect my son the day before. We'd both been put into the worst sort of danger and then he had been forced to...fornicate with me. I blamed myself for those failings and for putting him into that situation. I hadn't permitted myself to approach those feelings, really, and now my son had wandered off into a strange city to do who knew what."

"He was 18 years old," the interviewer says, "not a child."

Emily frowns, just a bit, and says, "He's my child. No matter what else happens, to a mother part of her child is always the infant that she bore, always needing protection. I had failed to protect him and now I couldn't protect him because he wasn't there. I panicked."

"And what did you do when you saw your husband?" the interviewer asks.

Distress washes across Emily's features. "It...wasn't good."

"I heard Emily screaming before the elevator doors opened," Bob recalls with a frown. "I'd never heard her like that. When I got there she was surrounded by five or six staff - the concierge, a desk clerk, bellboys, a janitor even - and she looked like she'd lost her mind."

"What was she doing?" the interviewer asks.

"Yelling very loudly and rather incoherently that someone needed to find Mike immediately," Bob says, "while crying and waving her arms around wildly. With her hair the way it is - very uncontrollable - she can sometimes look a little unhinged even when she's absolutely calm, but with her so frantic and her hair just flying off in all directions, she looked like a complete maniac."

"What did you do?"

"I went up and tried to get her to settle down," Bob said. "I mean, she was almost raving. I put my hands on her shoulders and I was as surprised as anyone when she stopped yelling, sort of collapsed against me, and started crying and apologizing."

"I didn't notice Bob was there until he put his hands on my shoulders," Emily says, "and instantly the panic and fear all left me, simply because the guilt it made me feel left no room for anything else."

"Why did you feel so much guilt when your husband did that?" asks the interviewer.

"Because I'd failed Mike so badly. Because I'd wrecked the minivan that we really couldn't afford to replace. Because of the things Mike and I had been forced to do. Because the Visigoths had forced me to strip naked in front of them." Emily sighs heavily. "The main reason, though, was because I had loved the sex with my son so very much more than I ever had with my husband. When Bob put his hands on my shoulders, I had a moment of perfect, crystalline clarity in which I knew that every sexual encounter I ever had with him from then on would be bitterly disappointing. There was simply no doubt of it in my mind. My sex life with my husband, such as it was, had been completely destroyed by our own son."

"What do you mean, 'such as it was?'" the interviewer asks.

Emily opens her mouth to speak and then closes it again, and the camera slowly zooms in on her face during the long, and then painfully long moment she takes to compose herself and her answer. She shows a range of emotions - regret, sadness, contemplativeness, and finally a severe curtain of wariness and caution, and when she speaks her tone is measured, careful, and composed. "After the first several months together, Bob and I hadn't ever been particularly sexually active. We seldom made love anymore."

"Why not? Is he a bad lover?" the interviewer asks.

"No, of course not," Emily says instantly and with what comes off as well-prepared certainty. "I should rather say that, as the demands of our careers and child-raising and simply living life took their tolls, sex was one of the things that got sacrificed."

Back to Bob. "I knew of Emily by sight and reputation before I met her. We were sophomores at the University of Minnesota and we had some overlapping friends so we'd see each other at parties. I thought she was gorgeous, to the point where I was intimidated about talking to her."

"What was her reputation?" the interviewer asks.

"Word was she was a...a wild girl," Bob laughs. "She liked to do crazy things, like she was an adrenaline junkie. There was one time people told me about where she got up on the roof of this eight- or ten-story building at night that had this steel girder sticking out of the side. She went out and danced on it."

"I...did that, yes," Emily admits with what her smile makes clear is feigned reluctance. "Several friends of mine from dance and I had gotten up onto the roof of a building with a beautiful view of the Mississippi River and downtown Minneapolis. There may have been a small amount of marijuana involved."

"It must have been quite the adrenaline rush," the interviewer says. "Is that something you like?"

"I certainly did," she says. "I did any number of things that I'd be mortified and furious to discover my children doing now. But age and responsibility has a way of calming one down."

"Your reputation for wildness," the interviewer says. "Was it only for daredevil stunts, or did you have a sexual reputation as well?"

Emily seems a bit discomfited by the question. "I...enjoyed my first two years at college and did a great many things that college students typically do. Sexual activity was a part of that."

"Emily had the reputation of being a hellcat in bed," Bob says with a smile. "Of course I found that intriguing!"

"What did you think of Bob before you met him?" the interviewer asks Emily as she reappears onscreen.

"I thought he was gorgeous. He seemed a little shy and very sweet. I had heard he was majoring in sociology, which I've always found interesting," she replies. "I was hoping I'd get a chance to talk to him."

Bob again. "I finally got up the nerve to approach her and we ended up spending four hours talking, followed by about six hours in bed. It was a whirlwind sort of thing. We spent every free moment together for about a month, and then we sort of cooled off. I don't think we had as much in common as we thought at first. In fact, I hadn't seen her for a few days when she called and told me she was pregnant."

Emily reappears as the interviewer asks, "You weren't on birth control?"

"I can't use birth control, I have side effects that hinder my dancing," she replies. "We used condoms every time. Condoms are not 100% effective."

"And what did you think when you found out?"

"I was stunned, obviously."

"And was it a foregone conclusion that you'd carry it?"

"Not at all," Emily replied with a decisive shake of her head, "and even less of a conclusion that I would keep the baby. It entailed a major disruption of my life and my plans, after all, including scholarships and other funding. I was in a very great deal of turmoil, and to his everlasting credit Bob was there for me every step of the way. We spent a tremendous amount of time together over the next nine months, and by the time Michael was born, we had decided to try staying together."

"Were you happy?"

"In almost every way, Bob is a remarkable man," Emily says after only a moment's hesitation. "He never wavered, and he gave me every confidence that we could live a life together and raise our child - or rather, children, since Olivia came along less than a year later." Careful observers will note that she didn't answer the question.

Bob reappears as the interviewer inquires, "How was your sex life?"

"After Olivia came, it fell away to almost nothing," Bob replies. "We had two babies to care for, I found a full-time job with the County, and Emily went back to school for her dance degree as well as holding down part-time jobs to help us make ends meet. At the end of the day we'd be so exhausted that it was all we could do to make it to bed instead of falling asleep on the sofa."

"Sex became a luxury," Emily says, "to be indulged in when the rare opportunity presented itself. Even then it was more companionable than lusty and transcendent. Neither of us had the time or energy for a robust sex life when the children were young, and by the time they reached their teens, we found it easier to simply stay in our rut."

"Did you ever go outside your marriage for sex?" the interviewer asks.

"Not until Mike," she replies simply.

Bob tells us, "I had one...well, I won't even call it an affair. It was a fling, a woman I was with twice when I was...31 or so. She was a friend of a friend and we met for sex. I broke it off because I felt guilty, and then I simply buried it. I never told Emily."

Emily again as the interviewer asks, "Did you love your husband?"

Emily considers for a moment before answering, "Yes, absolutely. I still love him. There's so much to admire about him - his kindness, his compassion, his strength of character, his insight, I could go on. But by the time this was all going on, there was no passion in the marriage. None whatsoever."

"So I'd been gone for a few hours, I don't even know how long," Mike says. "I'd walked over half the damned city and wound up down by the water. I mean, you pretty much can't go anywhere in San Francisco and not end up down by the water. I actually ended up all the way on the other side of the city, by the Pacific, like right down by the zoo? Just walking on the beach."

"What had you been doing the whole time?" the interviewer asks.

"Just walking, man, just trying to sort shit out in my head. I wasn't panicking anymore, I just was so...ashamed. So guilty. I didn't want to face mom again with what I'd done to her. I couldn't even imagine facing dad! I just wanted to run away."

"Why didn't you?" the interviewer asks.

Mike smirks and says, "All my shit was back at the hotel. Anyway, I finally turned my phone on and there were like forty messages from mom and dad and Olivia. And I'd only had it on for like three minutes when Olivia called again and was all like, 'Where the fuck are you? Mom is freaking out! What did you do? Did you have a fight?' And then I realized that Mom hadn't told them anything that happened."

"Was that important?" the interviewer asks.

"Yeah, I mean I didn't want anybody to know what happened, obviously," Mike replies. "So I just asked Olivia to put mom on. I hadn't even gotten the words out when mom was on the line."

"Bob had taken me up to our room," Emily says, "and he and Olivia were trying to calm me down, but I was doing little more than crying at that point. When I heard Olivia talking to Mike, I asked her for the phone so I could speak to her."

"Emily was lying on the bed," says Bob. "When Olivia finally got through to Mike, Emily vaulted up off the bed, leaped across the room - seriously, leaped - and ripped the phone out of her hand."

"Mom was just bombarding me, like, 'Where are you? What are you doing? Are you safe?' All that stuff. It took a couple of minutes to get her settled down a little bit."

"Hearing his voice was very...calming," Emily says. "When he told me he was safe and was coming back to the hotel, I felt much more rational and in control of myself."

"When I could get a word in, I asked mom to go someplace private so we could talk without being overheard," Mike says. "I think she went out on the balcony because I was suddenly hearing wind. I asked her what she'd told them, and she couldn't really remember. She was pretty rattled. I told her just to tell them we'd had a huge fight and things had gotten personal and mean, and we'd talk when I got back to get the details of our story straight. She seemed OK with that."

"It was good to have something to hold onto," Emily says. "Part of my panic was not knowing what to tell my husband and daughter. Having something to focus on, even if it was a lie, gave me a point around which to order my thoughts."

"Emily came back in from the balcony," Bob says, "and said that Mike was fine and coming back. She seemed much more composed, but in a very...well, brittle way, as though she could snap again at any moment. Then she said, without any kind of preamble, that she and Mike had had a terrible fight that had left her very upset. Then she announced she was going to take a shower and locked herself in the bathroom for forty minutes."

"Did you believe her?" the interviewer asks.

"Of course not," Bob replied with a shrug. "She's the worst liar I've ever known."

"What did you think was bothering her?"

"I didn't know. I assumed that, between her and Mike, I'd get the truth out of them soon enough," Bob says.

"I walked back into the city and called a cab," Mike says. "I got back to the hotel about an hour after the call. Olivia was waiting for me in the lobby, and she was pissed."

"That you'd argued with your mom and upset her?" asks the interviewer.

"Ha! No," Mike says. "Well, a little about that, but mostly it was because all this 'drama' was ruining her time with her cousins. She was 17 years old, everything was about her. Normally I sort of blew her off, but I wasn't really in the mood this time so we ended up screaming at each other in the lobby. And then in the elevator. And then for like 15 minutes in the room we shared. And then we hugged and I told her to have a good time."

"Olivia later told me that she left the room after telling Mike to go fuck himself," Bob says.

"I took a shower," Mike says, "then called mom to tell her I was coming. Five minutes later I was at her door."

"I answered the door, let him inside, and then left them alone while I went down to the Market Street Grill for lunch," Bob says. "I figured they needed some time to work out whatever was really happening between them."

"So there we were finally, face to face," Emily says. Exhaling heavily, she adds, "And now we had to talk."

"Was it still awkward?" asks the interviewer.

"Surprisingly, no," Emily replies. "Of course, we didn't discuss what had happened at all."

"You...didn't?" asks the plainly surprised interviewer.

"No," she says. "There was no need to at that point. Well, of course there was a need to, a desperate need to, but there was something else to discuss. Namely, the details of the story we'd use."

"Why didn't you talk about what had happened?" the interviewer asks Mike.

"Because we had something else we could talk about instead," he replies. "And I think we'd both pretty much decided to avoid that topic as long as humanly possible. We'd have both been delighted if we could go the rest of our lives and never discuss what had happened. And yeah, of course we needed to talk about it, but we didn't."

"The cover story we devised was, I thought, quite good," Emily says, seeming proud of herself. "We decided that Mike had convinced me that he be allowed to drive Lou, and he was behind the wheel when we struck the deer. I was angry that he had destroyed my minivan and we argued, which spiraled into a series of wholly unfair accusations on each side. However, we had now said our profoundest apologies and forgiven each other, so there was no need for Bob or Olivia to bring it up ever again."

"And as soon as we'd figured that out," adds Mike, "I immediately got the hell away from her."

"I was very glad when he left," Emily nods.

"What did you do then?" the interviewer asks.

Emily blushes demurely. "I called Bob and asked him to come back to the room for...marital relations."

"Were you excited?" the interviewer asks.

"I...was and I wasn't," she says. "Or rather, I was and didn't want to be. And even that's not it. I was and needed it to be something that it wasn't."

"Can you explain that?"

"While I was sitting in the room with my son, we were talking about a lie we were creating together, but...I...found myself thinking about certain things that had happened the day before. About how good it felt, and about how much I used to love sex. I used to look forward to it all the time, and feeling what I had felt made me..."

"Made you what?"

"Made me want to want it that much again," she says, her blush deepening. "That's why I called Bob."

"Did you want it with Bob?" the interviewer asks.

Emily's blush goes maroon. "No. But I had to want him. Then, at that moment, it needed to be him that I wanted."

"I was surprised," Bob says, "but pleased. I went back and she attacked me the moment I got in the room. It hadn't been like that for us since...well, since before Mike was born. It was great."

"Was it good?" the interviewer asks Emily.

She shifts uncomfortably and shakes her head. "No. It was the same as it always was with Bob. He wasn't the one who reminded me how much I used to love sex before I was with him. How could he be?"

"Honestly, the next couple days were pretty fun," says Mike in voiceover as we see a series of photographs of various members of the family engaging in activities with unidentified people: Bob, Emily, and a dozen other adults at Fisherman's Wharf; Mike with several males around his age at AT&T Park for a Giants game; Olivia with a large group of teenage girls all crowding into a selfie with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. "There were all kinds of cousins there, some I never even met before, and it was fun just hanging out and doing whatever. And I only saw mom in the mornings and evenings, like good morning-good night stuff."

"Did you think about what had happened between you and her?" the interviewer asks as Mike's face reappears.

"Yeah. I mean, of course I did," Mike says. "Even when I was doing something else, every couple of minutes I'd start thinking about it."

"What, specifically?"

Mike shrugs. "How good it all had been. It was the best sex I'd even had, but there was more than that. It just felt so right when it was happening. I think that was what was fucking me up. I mean, yeah, good sex is great, but when we were actually doing it? We didn't even hesitate because it all felt so...right. We just clicked so damned hard, like nobody else I'd ever been with. That's really what I couldn't stop thinking of."

"It was constantly in my mind," Emily tells us. "Constantly. Even when I was with Bob...with him sexually, I mean. Especially then."

"How did that make you feel?" the interviewer asks.

Emily shrugs, then offers a wan smile and says, "Hollow."

"Did you think about Mike in a concrete way," the interviewer asks, "or in a more abstract..."

"I don't understand what you're asking," Emily says.

"I mean when you were with Bob, did you visualize Mike? Did you imagine yourself with Mike again? Or was it more the sensations you'd gotten with him?"

Emily nods. "Oh. It was a combination of both of those things. After having felt those sensations at Mike's hand, I couldn't pretend that I hadn't felt them, or that Mike hadn't been responsible. In the same way, I couldn't pretend that Bob could give me the same thing. I hated that knowledge, but I couldn't avoid it."

"I kept thinking about the way I'd felt when mom was down on her knees," Mike says. "I kept thinking about how it felt when I went inside her. I kept thinking about how strong and how complete it made me feel. I mean, I kept coming back to that no matter how hard I tried. And it made me feel so. Goddamned. Guilty."

The screen goes black and we see one line of text in white lettering:

June 22

"Bob was certain something else had happened that we weren't telling him," Emily says. "That morning, he asked me about what had happened. Mike and I had been avoiding each other very deliberately, and in retrospect it was probably obvious to Bob that there was a reason beyond an automobile accident. I told him again the lie that Mike and I had agreed upon. I...am not sure I'm a very good liar."

"The day of the wedding was foggy and rainy," Mike recalls. "And cold. When San Francisco gets chilly, it's chilly. I hadn't seen mom for more than an hour total over the past couple days combined, and always when dad was there too. Like, for breakfasts and then a little bit after we all got back to the hotel. But this was going to be a whole different thing. We were going to be spending the whole day together - well, afternoon and evening, between the ceremony and the reception and the dance and everything. And we were gonna be busy, yeah, but we were going to have deal with each other. And with dad. I was nervous."

"How was your father treating you?"the interviewer asks.

"He knew something was up," Mike says. "I know he didn't suspect what it was, but he knew it was big and that mom and I were avoiding it. That morning after breakfast, he pulled me aside and asked me about it again. I told him the same thing, and it was like, yeah, he wasn't buying it. It wasn't like he called me a liar or anything. He just asked me to talk to mom privately before the wedding."

"And did you?"

"No. I wanted to. I knew I should have. I knew we needed to just open up with each other and be honest, but I just didn't know how to start. It was...too big for me."

"It was a summer wedding, even though it was cold and miserable, so I had to dress like it," Emily tells in voiceover as we see a picture of her from that day. Her dress is a pleasant, unobtrusive yellow frock with lace trim, suitable for a woman in her late 30s, except perhaps that it's a touch shorter than one might expect. The relative brevity and her heels show off her perfectly-toned legs to great advantage. "In retrospect it might have been wiser to wear something longer."

"The wedding was this huge event," Mike says, "so they'd gotten Grace Cathedral." We now see a series of stunning shots of the cavernous interior of the cathedral, with its gorgeous stained glass and murals. In voiceover, Mike continues, "We were all pretty excited because the groom was the son of a Hollywood bigwig and there were going to be all sorts of stars there. Olivia had stayed with some of the cousins the night before and was getting dressed and stuff over there, so it was just me, mom, and dad. And I thought it was going to be OK until I met up with them in the hallway and saw mom's dress."

"What was wrong with your mother's dress?" the interviewer asks. "It seems quite normal."

"It showed lots of leg," Mike explains with a grin. "She has amazing legs, and...well, when I saw them I just kept thinking about what was between them, about being between them. About having them wrapped around me. When I saw her wearing that dress for the first time I had this crystal-clear vision in my mind of pushing her up on the table, flipping the dress up, and...well, you know. Sex. And she was standing right next to dad when I had that picture in my mind, which like tripled the guilt I was already feeling."

"I saw where his eyes went," Emily says, a faint blush beginning to color her cheeks, "and I knew what he was thinking. And because I knew he was thinking that, I began to think it too. It was...remarkably awkward, given that Bob was standing less than a foot away from me."

"Of course I didn't notice anything then," Bob says. "I was probably looking at my phone or something. There were dozens and dozens of text messages flying back and forth and I was trying to keep up with what was going on."

"I knew then that it was gonna be a tough night," Mike says. "And no matter how hard I tried, I just kept looking at her legs."

"It made me profoundly uncomfortable," Emily admits. "Not, of course, just because he was looking or even because Bob was there, but because there was a small part of me that didn't find it unpleasurable. It was the same part of me that had so much loved what had happened between us. And when I say the part was small, I was acutely aware that it might become larger if I encouraged it, and that terrified me, but at the same time I...well, I didn't crush that part. I don't even know if I could have. I think that part of me had been awakened from a long sleep and couldn't be put down again so easily. That part of me felt proud that Mike was looking at my legs and thinking...carnally about me, and was enjoying thinking the same about him."

"What did you do with that part of yourself?" the interviewer asks.

Emily licks her lips delicately. "I tried to isolate it. The shame was acute, and I know I leaned in and grabbed Bob's arm reflexively, as though he were a shield of some sort. And I..." Here she pauses and her flush deepens into an actual blush before she continues, "I looked at Mike to see what effect I was having on him."

"Looked at him?" the interviewer asks.

Emily's blush gets redder. "In the front. His front. Of his pants."

"I saw mom's eyes go right to my crotch like it was a magnet," Mike says, "and if I wasn't hard before, that made me so hard it hurt. And she just stared, her eyes kinda wide and her mouth open just a little bit, and God, all I could do was imagine the things she'd done with her mouth and her hands and her pussy, how insanely good that all felt and how completely fucking wrong it was that all of a sudden I wanted it again, and I knew she wanted it again too. And that was deeply, deeply fucked up."

"I don't imagine most people can understand what a horrific moment it was," Emily says intensely. "To be coerced into sex with my son in the first place, and then to be standing in a hotel hallway with him aroused by me and I aroused by him, and my arm around my husband. It was a very quiet elevator ride to the lobby."

"It got worse," Mike says. "We had to take a taxi to the church, and dad had me get in first and mom next, so she was sandwiched between us after he got in. She was pressed right up against me, shoulder against shoulder, thigh against thigh. I could feel her warmth. I kept trying to think of something else, but...yeah, get real. Not gonna happen."

Emily will only say, "I wished it had been pleasant so we could have walked."

We see a series of photographs of Grace Cathedral exterior and interior, from posed shots of the entire wedding party on the steps (the bride is lovely, the groom and groomsmen are handsome, and the bridesmaids are attired in a shade of peach that makes them look plump and sickly so as not to upstage the bride) to celebrities arriving (Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner walk in arm in arm, Johnny Depp climbs out of a limo in a bizarre ensemble, Emma Stone smiles hugely as she bends to accept a flower from a little girl, Julianne Moore stands laughing with George Clooney). In voiceover, Emily says, "To say we were dazzled would be an understatement. We were simple provincials from the Midwest, and suddenly it seemed we recognized someone famous everywhere we looked. And everything was so lovely! It all seemed like quite a fairy tale."

"Grace Cathedral is pretty big, so it's not like mom was sitting on my lap or anything," Mike says. "But we were close, and she was still wearing that dress, and I kept looking."

"Mike was still...aroused," Emily says. "It was quite obvious, and I found it difficult to keep my eyes away from it."

"Every few minutes," Mike says, "one of us would catch the other one looking, and it was the most embarrassing thing! I mean, my cousin was getting married in a cathedral surrounded by celebrities and rich people, and I can't stop perving on her and she can't stop perving on me. It was getting out of control, and I hurt. I mean I hurt."

"His erection looked rather painful," Emily says demurely and with a blush that the little smile at the corner of her mouth belies.

"So the ceremony is going on and there's singing and scripture readings and shit," Mike says, "and all I can think is how good it felt to sink my cock into my mom and how good it would feel to do it again and how much I know she'd love it too and my dad was right there and we were in a fucking church and I had to do something about it because it was driving me nuts and my mom wouldn't stop looking at my crotch like she was a starving woman looking at a steak - so I...excused myself and went to the bathroom."

"When Mike slipped out, I knew that he was going to...to masturbate," Emily says, and it's clear she's working hard to keep a smile off her face. "And as guilty as it made me feel - and it made me feel terribly guilty - I felt a horrible, thrilling element of pride. My son had to go masturbate himself because I was wearing a short dress and he could see my legs, and because of the sex we'd had. I'd lived without sex for so long that I'd forgotten it, forgotten the power that arousing someone else can fill you with. It's despicable, I know, but at that moment I was so...wet."

"What did you do?" the interviewer asks.

She blushes deeper, but the smile breaks out a bit more. "I sat and looked smug, I think. And...I imagined what Mike was doing and what it looked like. I tried not to, but I didn't seem to be able to control my thoughts. Images kept creeping in no matter what I did."

"I got into the bathroom," Mike says. "Nobody else was around, thank God. I went into a stall, pulled it out, stroked it maybe twice, and then came so hard my knees almost buckled."

"What were you thinking about when you came?" the interviewer asks.

Mike laughs. "I didn't have time to think. It went too fast. After that I felt a lot better. I cleaned up and headed back to the service."

"When Mike came back, I couldn't help but look at his face," Emily says. "He wouldn't meet my eyes, but now I learned what he looked like after he orgasmed, and it was obvious that he had just done so."

"How did that make you feel?" the interviewer asks.

"Shameful," she replies, "and triumphant. Mostly shameful, especially because seeing that expression on his face made me even more aroused. Mike came back and sat next to me and I think we kept our eyes to ourselves for the rest of the service, but as soon as the service was done, I went to the restroom and..."

"And?" the interviewer asks.

Emily goes red. "And I relieved tension."

"So. I'd jerked off to my mom in the middle of a church wedding," Mike says sheepishly. "That's one thing off the bucket list."

"The reception was at the Ritz-Carlton, just a couple of blocks away," Bob tells us. "The sun had come out during the receiving line after the ceremony, so we walked with a group of relatives. I had noticed some tension between Emily and Mike during the service, and once it was over they wouldn't even look at each other."

"And you still had no clue it was sexual tension?" the interviewer asks.

"No. It's not like you logically leap to the conclusion that your wife and your son are having problems in their sexual relationship," Bob says a bit harshly. "I thought that it was more of their argument leaking through, and I was getting tired of it. Emily walked at the very front of the family group heading to the reception and Mike walked at the back. We were all heading home the next day and I made up my mind that I was going to lock those two together until they sorted out whatever was bothering them once we got back to Minneapolis."

"There was some time before the reception started," Mike says, "but I didn't have to hang with mom so it was all right. And with the edge taken off I could actually think of other things. It was kind of like a vacation."

"The dinner was lovely," Emily recalls. "The Ritz-Carlton is gorgeous, of course, and the food was wonderful. None of the celebrities had stayed for the reception - no one I recognized, at least - and so it felt like more of a family affair. Although...well, Mike, Bob, Olivia and I were all seated at the same table and there were a few moments of...tension."

"I was to mom's right," Mike says, "and our feet kept meeting under the table. I mean it probably happens all the time to everyone when you have four people eating at a small table, but we were both really noticing it this time. And every time they touched we'd pull back fast and look at each other with the guiltiest expressions. It would have been funny if I had been watching two other people go through it because it was just awkward and stupid and it kept happening over and over again. But it sucked to be the one dealing with it."

"After dinner came the dance," Bob says, "so of course Emily had me out on the floor as soon as she could. I suggested she dance with Mike, and she turned white and said no. So she and I danced almost continuously."

"I watched mom dance with dad," Mike tells us, "and she was hanging all over him, just draped on him in a way she didn't usually do when they danced. And she never even looked at me once, which was as good as staring at me the whole time. Of course I was watching her."

"I knew Mike was watching me," Emily says. "Of course I did. He was making no secret of it. After a little while I realized that I was dancing especially close to my husband. It hadn't been deliberate before then, but it certainly became so once I had realized."

"Why is that?" the interviewer asks.

"Not to make Mike jealous," she answers quickly.

"I don't think she was consciously doing it to piss me off," Mike tells us, "but I think it was definitely a 'This is my man, not you,' kind of thing, and it did make me jealous. I mean, I'd have died of shame and embarrassment if she were hanging off me like that, don't get me wrong, but a part of me was pretty envious, which is why I ended up with Brianna."

We now see a series of pictures of a young woman of about 18, a brunette with a dazzling smile and an hourglass figure. In the first she is on a beach in a bikini that shows off her figure to advantage; the second is a duckfaced selfie with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background; the last is her at the reception in a slinky blue dress with one arm around the bride and another around a bridesmaid who strongly resembles a slightly-older version of Brianna.

The subtitle reads Brianna Salazar.

"Brianna was the little sister of one of the bridesmaids," Mike tells us on voiceover. "She was my age and when I asked her to dance, she said yes. Girls who aren't married tend to get pretty horny at weddings, and she had sneaked some alcohol anyway and was pretty loose. By like the second dance we did, she had her tongue down my throat."

We see a disapproving Emily, who shakes her head and says, "Mike was making a display on the dance floor with that girl. They were kissing and pawing each other and making quite a scene. Bob seemed amused by it, but I certainly wasn't! I was about to send him over to break the pair of them up when suddenly the girl led him off the dance floor and right out the door! Of course I knew what they were going to do."

"Were you jealous?" the interviewer asks.

"No!" Emily snaps entirely too quickly. "I was not. I was ashamed that my son would be so accepting of the advances of a drunken...floozy and make a spectacle of himself that way in public. I wanted Bob to go stop them as they left, but he refused."

"Go get 'em, champ!" Bob says cheerfully.

"She pulled me right upstairs and into bed," Mike remembers. "We went at it like three times."

"Was it good?" the interviewer asks.

"Well, yeah," Mike replied, sounding less than convincing. "I mean, yeah, it was good. It was just that a few days before I'd had the best sex ever and I hadn't stopped thinking about it since, so it sort of paled next to that. But hell, it was fun."

"Did you think about your mother during it?"

"Of course I did," Mike says with a shrug. "I mean, I didn't wish it was her in bed with me or anything. Nothing that...well, that concrete. She was just always there in my mind. Mom was so good, and being with her felt so perfect. Brianna was nice and enthusiastic and good and everything, but...well, whatever comes after 'perfect' is going to be a letdown, right?"

"Mike's behavior left me quite upset," Emily sniffs. "I didn't enjoy the night very much after that, and Bob and I left early."

"I made it back to our hotel about 3:30 in the morning," Mike says. "Olivia wasn't there yet. She got back after I was already in bed. We had a 2:00 PM flight back to Minneapolis that day."

"We went through a pocket of turbulence as we passed over the Rockies," Emily recalls. "Mike got a little airsick. All I could do was think that there had been some turbulence at about that spot on the way out as well. I'd always liked the mountains before, but they'd lost their luster for me, I think it's fair to say."

"The next couple days after we got back were no better between Emily and Mike," Bob tells us. "I'd had a fleeting hope that they'd leave their troubles on the coast, but if anything it had gotten worse. They couldn't even be in the same room with each other."

"The tension was palpable," Emily admits. "Furthermore, I could tell when Mike entered a room I was in even when I had my back turned. I could feel when he put his eyes on me. I would tense and..." she trails off.

"And?" the interviewer asks.

She blushes again and shrugs. "And it would become uncomfortable."

"I was sick to my stomach for the first couple of days," Mike says. "I couldn't stop thinking about her, about it, and there was this mass of guilt and lust and self-loathing, so much self-loathing. I took three cold showers a day and nothing helped. Every time I saw her, every time I even heard her voice, I'd get this massive erection and there'd be this spike of...of longing and disgust and need and almost nausea. I wasn't sleeping. I could barely eat. No way I could look her in the eye."

"It was very difficult," Emily confirms. "I recall once when I went to take a shower and discovered that Mike was already in there. The door was locked. I didn't see him in the shower. But I knew he was there with the water splashing over his nude body and the air would be hot and steamy and I had the most perfectly vivid image of slipping into the bathroom silently, disrobing, opening the shower door and stepping inside, seeing the look of shock on his face and silencing him with a kiss, and then him putting me against the wall and...taking me. I could picture how my legs would wrap around him. I could imagine how the water would feel running between us as we...mated. The image lasted only a moment, but it left me incredibly aroused!

"And then I turned around and saw Bob," she continues, her face darkening. "He wasn't looking at me. He was doing something else, not paying me any mind whatsoever, but the sight of him made me feel...unclean. Deceitful. As though I'd deliberately betrayed him." She shakes her head fiercely and wipes a tear from the corner of her eye. "I wanted the thoughts of Mike to go away. I wanted things to be the way they'd been before the accident. I wanted my son back. But I wasn't in control of my thoughts."

"After a couple of days, I was completely fed up," Bob says. "By the third day Emily and Mike couldn't even be in the same room together. I was eating breakfast with Emily and we were talking about some work we needed to do in the back yard. Olivia came in, we talked with her a bit and then went on talking about the yard. A few minutes later Mike walked in, and Emily jumped up in the middle of a sentence and said she had to go. She actually left for work 20 minutes early because Mike walked into the room. I'd had enough."

Against a black background, we see:

June 27

"The day after that was Saturday," Mike says. "I'd planned to go to a backyard party with some friends of mine. Hannah was supposed to be there and I was going to ask her out."

We now see a photograph of a girl of about 18 years, a pretty, freckled redhead with a happy smile; the subtitle is Hannah Williamson. In voiceover, Mike says, "I was looking forward to it because I figured if I could get involved with another girl, I could stop obsessing about mom. I thought I could move past it.

"But then dad walked into the room," Mike continues as we see his face again. "He told me to follow him. He took me into the living room, where mom was...dusting or cleaning or something. I remember the look of panic in her eyes very clearly."

"I had known Bob was getting tired of the strain between Mike and me," Emily recalls uneasily. "I didn't know he was about to do something so precipitous."

"I told them that I didn't know what had happened on the trip," Bob tells us, "but I was tired of it and it had to stop. Olivia was going to be gone for the day and I told them I was leaving too, and they had to address it. I told them they could yell or scream or throw accusations or whatever, but when I got back, I wanted their problems sorted out and whatever was bothering them to be resolved. And then I left."

"Mom and I just stood there staring at each other for the longest time," Mike says. "We knew dad was right, we needed to talk, but neither of us knew how to start."

"After several seconds I sat down on the sofa and had him sit next to me," Emily says. "Neither of us was comfortable. We were both quite stiff and awkward."

"I didn't want to sit next to her," Mike agrees. "Across the room would have been more comfortable. But I sat down and looked at the floor and tried not to smell her."

"Smell her?" the interviewer asks.

"Yeah. It was a warm day and she'd been working. She had a little sweat going, just enough to make her glisten. I could smell it very faintly and it reminded me of when we were together, her scent - all her scents. It was making me hard."

"After some time I said something inane," Emily tells us. "Something along the lines of 'You mustn't blame yourself' or 'Nothing that happened was your fault.' I felt stupid even as I said it."

"Wasn't it true?" the interviewer asks.

"It didn't matter that it was true," Emily says impatiently. "It was irrelevant. The tension between us at that point was much less about what had happened and much more about our reactions to it. We'd both loved it and neither of us could stop thinking about the other in that way. It wasn't about what we'd done, it was about what we wanted."

"Which was?" the interviewer probes.

"Each other," Emily says with an eloquent shrug.

"So we were just sitting there spouting bullshit at each other," Mike recalls with a disgusted shake of his head. "Just this meaningless crap. It was all, 'I was just glad you weren't hurt, oh it could have been much worse, we got away lucky if you think about it," and none of it was even touching on what we both needed to talk about. After like three minutes I wanted to scream but we just kept jabbering like idiots at each other."

"One thing working at a university has taught me is that if you ladle enough inanity on any problem, it goes away," Emily says. "I was beginning to think we were doing just that when I said, quite casually, that I was disappointed in how he behaved at the wedding reception when he went off with a girl."

"When she said that, it was like this weird shadow play we were doing just dropped, just fell apart," Mike says, "and I got pissed. I was like, 'What the fuck? I'm an adult, you got no claim on me!'"

"Mike told me that my reproach of him was about jealousy," Emily says, "which was ridiculous. As his mother, I would have chided him about promiscuous sex regardless of what had happened between us. This didn't mean I hadn't been jealous, because I'd been incredibly jealous, but at that moment I wasn't about to be scolded by my son for trying to be a mother to him, so I replied that his attitude was inappropriate."

"So she yells at me that I'd better remember who I'm talking to, and I yell that she'd been trying to make me jealous by hanging off dad during the dance, and then she yells that I had a lot of nerve going after her for being affectionate with my father," Mike says. "We were both yelling and pointing our fingers in each other's faces and then she told me that I'd been a pig for jerking off to her during the wedding. And that's when we both got mad."

"Mike informed me that he knew that I had...pleasured myself after the wedding," Emily says. "Furthermore, he said that I had been...looking at him lustfully when I thought he wasn't looking."

"Had you?" the interviewer asks.

Emily blushes. "I may have been. Occasionally."

"She didn't like having that thrown in her face," Mike says with a frown. "She told me that I'd been acting like an asshole since our time together. Well, she didn't use that word. I think she said 'uncouth' or something like that. She said that I hadn't made an effort to talk about what had happened, which was like, yeah no shit, neither did you, you know?"

"There were other words exchanged, each of us accusing the other of things we were equally guilty of doing," Emily says as a blush begins to color her cheeks. "After some period of time, I told him that I thought he had actually enjoyed what we had done."

"And that completely pissed me off," Mike says, "because I absolutely had enjoyed it and I felt like shit about it, and furthermore, she'd enjoyed it just as much as I had. I told her...well, I told her that when she was begging me to fuck her, I knew it wasn't just for show. I told her that she'd loved sucking my cock and she'd loved getting fucked by it and if she denied it she was a liar."

"What did she say to that?" the interviewer asks.

Mike grins. "She hit me. Smacked me right across the face, this big, loud slap. Mom's a strong gal. I saw stars."

"And what did you do?" the interviewer asks.

Mike's grin widens. "I grabbed her by the shoulders, yanked her to me, and kissed her so hard my lips hurt."

Emily's flush has deepened. "I instantly felt dreadful about that slap, but a moment later I had completely forgotten about it. Mike simply crushed me to him and put his lips on mine and...oh, my. That kiss. He kissed me like he owned me, and suddenly all the anger went out of me. Every bit of it simply fled. I got lightheaded. To be perfectly honest, I felt for a moment as though I were flying."

"She just stiffened in my arms," Mike tells us. "Her whole body went rigid and she just held herself there while I kissed her. She didn't kiss me back. She didn't try to get away. I don't even think she breathed. She just took it. I held that kiss for a minute, maybe, and then I pulled back enough that I could see her face. I wanted to know if I had an asskicking coming."

Emily has a dreamy look on her face. "I stared at him. I don't know for how long. I don't even remember moving, but suddenly I was kissing him back quite fiercely and pulling at his shirt."

"When she kissed me, it was on," Mike recalls. "That was a crazy kiss. Her mouth was so hungry! Her tongue was on mine and she was pulling at my shirt like she was pissed off that I was wearing it, so pretty soon I wasn't wearing it. Then I ripped her shirt open."

"I was wearing an old, baggy tee shirt," Emily says, her eyes gleaming, "and Mike tried to pull if off of me but I was busy getting his shirt off so he couldn't get it over my arms. So he simply grabbed it in both fists and ripped it open, right down the middle! The tearing sound was so loud, so shocking, but so erotic!"

"What was erotic about it?" the interviewer asks.

Emily laughs merrily. "He wanted me naked so badly that he couldn't wait to pull my shirt off, he simply destroyed it. What could be more erotic than inspiring that sort of ardor in a lover?" She doesn't seem to notice that she's used that particular word to describe her son.

"When I tore her shirt, she made this kind of purr," Mike says, rolling the word in his mouth and plainly enjoying its feel. "She trilled her tongue in my mouth and she grabbed my back, just sank her fingers in and yanked me to her. She's a strong girl and she pulled me to her so our bellies were touching. Her skin was so hot it felt like it was glowing. I could feel her heart just hammering against me."

"Did you think of stopping?" the interviewer asks.

"Hell no!" Mike says emphatically. "There was so much tension between us, once we found a release, it was gonna get released."

"I didn't think of stopping it," Emily admits. "The only thoughts I had were about how good it felt and about how much I needed it."

"No guilt?" the interviewer asks.

Emily shakes her head. "Not then. Only lust. The feel of his skin on mine was bliss. His hands and arms were so strong! And his kiss..." she sighs happily, a dreamy expression on her face. "Guilt wouldn't have stood a chance."

"I tore off her bra the same way I'd done her shirt," Mike says. "It was one of those front-fasten things, which I didn't know, so I was fumbling in back for the clasp and just getting pissed. Her nipples were so hard they felt like they were poking through the cups and I wanted them in my hands, I wanted them in my mouth. I moved my hands back in front and found the clasp, but by then I was like 'Fuck that!' and just ripped it open and tore it off."

Emily looks so aroused that she's about to swoon. "I'd thought I'd been aroused when he'd torn off my shirt, but when he did it to the bra as well! I don't think I'd ever been that excited. He was so strong, so forceful, and his arousal was so overwhelming! I had an image of him shredding everything I was wearing and simply taking me...oh my!"

"I'm not sure how we ended up on the couch," Mike says. "I think we tripped over it and she went over backwards and took me with her, I don't know. All I know is all of a sudden we were like half-on, half-off the couch and I had her left nipple in my mouth. It was so hard it felt like a pebble against my tongue, and her fist was wrapped up in my hair so she was holding my head in place and arching her back up into me, like she was fucking my mouth with her nipple. She had her other hand down my shorts in back, pulling my ass toward her. And she was talking dirty again."

"Oh yes, I was absolutely using filthy language," Emily nods, a bright blush on her cheeks. "I always do when I have thrilling sex."

"And this was thrilling?" the interviewer asks.

Emily nods again, fiercely, as her nostrils flare. "I felt drunk. The way he was treating me, manhandling me, roughly tossing me about and simply taking what he wanted had me beside myself. This was different from the first time, because now I knew how good it would be. I knew what an amazing lover my son was and I knew how perfectly we meshed together. I knew that this would be a transcendent encounter, and that this time we could do it however we wanted to, without prying eyes. This was just us, and I wanted him so badly it was all I could do to hold him and beg him like a cheap slut."

"I went back and forth between her nipples, just devouring her," Mike says, "and before long she's reaching down and messing with my shorts, trying to get them open, but the angle was weird and she was pressed against me so hard that she was having a hell of a time." He laughs and adds, "She tried to just tear them open like I did with her clothes but they had a big rivet for a fastener instead of a button so she just got pissed off. It was cute."

"I wanted him naked," Emily says emphatically. "I wanted every stitch off him and me, I wanted skin on skin - I wanted the sweat that two bodies make when fucking on a hot summer day, that natural lubricant that makes bodies slide against each other. The feel, the smell, the taste of a lover's sweat when I lick it off his skin, it's all like a symphony to me. It makes me feel so connected."

"Yeah, it was pretty clear what she wanted," Mike tells us, "and I knew she'd be wet enough to fuck already. She was so worked up I could smell her through her shorts. But I wasn't going to give her my cock yet. I had something else in mind."

"I was so frustrated when he moved down and took his shorts out of my reach!" Emily says, flushed and excited at the memory. "I wanted him inside me so bad! But then he began to kiss and lick his way down and I realized what he had planned!"

"Mom has the most amazing stomach," Mike tells us in an appreciative tone. "Every muscle is absolutely perfectly defined, there's not an ounce of flab or sag - she works out like a maniac to be the best dancer she can be, and dancing is insanely hard work. So I was nuzzling my way down over one muscle after another and her stomach was just heaving - she was sucking in breaths, holding them while I licked or sucked or nibbled and then letting them go with a massive whoosh and sucking in another. I got to her belly button -"

"My navel is very sensitive," Emily giggles, despite the fact that it's impossible to imagine her giggling when she's not aroused. "It's an incredibly erogenous zone for me and one that Bob had always ignored, and now I had my magnificent son's lips massaging it, his tongue flicking it. I was a whimpering, gasping mess."

"Her whole belly vibrated against me," Mike recalls. "It was like I'd struck a chime and she was just resonating to a chord only she could hear. She was huffing little gasps, like pushing air out and sucking it in all at once, and god her skin was hot! It was crazy, she was ready to go off like a rocket, and all I could think was how much I wanted to watch her come when I put my mouth on her pussy."

"I was wearing a tight pair of shorts," Emily says. "He tugged them and my panties down over my hips and then grabbed my legs and put them straight up in the air. I began to push my shorts and panties up my legs so I could kick them off, but when I got them to mid-thigh Mike said, 'No. Leave them there' in a voice that was so amazingly commanding that I instantly froze and let my hands fall."

"Why did you tell her to leave her clothes on?" the interviewer asks Mike.

Mike smiles and says, "Because I could. She wanted to take them off and I wanted her to know I was in charge. I wanted her to understand that I was in charge. So I told her to leave them on."

"Did you consider disobeying your son?" the interviewer asks Emily.

She grins salaciously. "Not for a second. Not when he instructed me in that voice. I felt chills up and down my spine and my pussy spasmed - I couldn't refuse even if I'd wanted to!"

"I pushed her legs back a little so her pussy was displayed to me perfectly," Mike relates, his eyes glittering. "It was this perfect, vertical slit, the inner lips peeking out, her clit hard on the top. She shaves on the sides so it was framed just perfectly. I just took a moment to admire it, absorb how beautiful it was, how perfect. I put my nose right next to her and took a long, deep breath so I could savor that smell...and then she whimpered."

"I was so crazy to have his mouth on me," Emily laughs, "or his fingers in me, or anything, and he was down there just looking and smelling for the longest time! It was infuriating! I didn't even know I'd whimpered, but suddenly he laughed and said, 'Oh is that so?' in this deep, sexy voice." She closes her eyes, a sensual smile spreading itself across her face. "And then he put his lips on me."

"I leaned in a fraction more and pressed my lips right onto her pussy, right over her opening," Mike tells us, obviously delighting in the memory. "I pushed against her with my lips, moving my head in little circles, nice and slow, and she opened for me like a flower. The smell was amazing, the sensation of her against my mouth, the way she was breathing, the way she trembled...God damn." He shakes his head and chuckles, obviously aroused by the memory. "And then I tasted her for the first time."

"What was that like?" the interviewer asks.

Mike's expression goes a little wistful, as though he were imagining tasting her again right now. "Perfect. I don't know how to explain it any better than that. It was just...perfect. It was how a woman ought to taste, how she ought to smell and sound and feel. It was every wet dream I'd ever had all in one, even wet dreams I didn't know I had."

"That sounds very...dramatic," the interviewer points out, sounding just a touch dubious.

Mike shrugs and smiles. "Maybe it does. I can't help it. I don't care. It was just...when you find something you've always been looking for even when you didn't know you were looking for it, it just clicks. It all snaps into place and you know it. You know it by how right it feels. How natural it feels, even when you know it shouldn't feel natural and it shouldn't feel right."

"And did you know that?" the interviewer asks.

"Oh yeah," Mike smiles ruefully. "Even then, right in the moment, there was that little voice in my head calling me a sick bastard for doing this, for doing it voluntarily and loving it. But fuck it, I could ignore that voice, so I did."

Emily reappears as the interviewer asks, "How did it feel when he began to lick you?"

Emily rumbles something that sounds like a delighted purr. "Heaven. It had been so long!"

"Bob seldom did that to you?" asks the interviewer.

She laughs. "Bob never did it to me. Well, maybe a few times in the beginning, before I got pregnant, but he was never enthusiastic about it and he was never good at it. He never wanted to do it, and when one doesn't enjoy or want to do something, one isn't likely to be good at it. I think I'd forgotten how wonderful it felt to be licked by a man who loves doing it, but one swipe of the tongue from Mike and I remembered!"

"She was so wet she was streaming," Mike recalls with considerable joy. "It was like a flood gate had been opened and she was pouring out against my tongue, on my cheeks, my chin, into my mouth, and that was right from the first lick. She gave this strangled little cry that was so fucking sexy, like she was feeling more pleasure than she even had a sound for, and that just made me dive in and go for it even harder. I didn't just want to make her come, I wanted to make her forget the world. I wanted to make her forget there was a time before or after I was going down on her. I wanted to rattle her teeth loose."

"Oh my God," Emily says in a half-moan, eyes nearly lidded as she rocks on her seat. "I'd never been licked like that before! He was devouring me, his tongue was everywhere inside and outside all at once, up and down, in and out, fucking me with it, licking my clit, sucking my lips - it felt like a hundred tongues on me! My son is a miracle worker with his mouth, and I was on the edge of coming almost instantly."

"I could feel the tension in mom's body, the way she quivered, the way she was holding her breath, and I knew I could send her over," Mike says. "But I didn't want to. I didn't want to give her the easy orgasm. I wanted to put it off and put it off until she was ready to explode and then shove her over the edge and make her come apart and then hold her there for as long as I could. So I backed off a little!"

"Aaahhh!" Emily cries theatrically. "I was so close! Just one more lick of my clit would have given it to me, but pulled back and started teasing!"

"I licked her lips," Mike tells us with a grin. "I suckled them - she loved that, but I could tell she wouldn't come just from that so I did it a lot. I licked her thighs, I nuzzled her mons, I sucked her perineum - hell, I even gave her ass a couple licks."

"No one had ever done that to me!" Emily says, her face flushed bright and her eyes wide, "And I liked it!"

"And did you like everything he was doing?" the interviewer asks.

"Yes!" Emily laughs. "And noooooo! I wanted to come so badly I hurt! I know I was begging him to let me come."

"Oh yeah, she was begging," Mike laughs. "'Let me come, let me fucking come, fuck me suck me JUST LET ME COME PLEEEAAAASE!'"

"And did you?" asks the interviewer.

Mike's grin goes wicked. "No. I like hearing her beg."

"It wasn't long before I was a wreck," Emily admits happily, obviously grinding her bottom enthusiastically into her chair. "A writhing, squirming, whimpering, vulgar, begging, pleading mess. And Mike was so...wonderfully unmoved by it! He was in command, in complete command of me and what was happening, and all I could do is lie there and take whatever he decided to give me. I was utterly in his hands."

"How did that make you feel?" the interviewer asks.

"Hot. Safe. Frustrated. Adored. Worshipped. Desperate. Nearly mad. More aroused than I can describe. I wanted it to end instantly and I wanted it to keep going forever. I hated and loved every single second of it."

"I don't know how long I kept her on the edge," Mike says. "Long enough that she ran out of dirty talk and was just moaning and saying 'please' over and over. So that's when I decided she'd earned an orgasm. I put my lips around her clit and she...levitated."

"What do you mean?" the interviewer asks, sounding amused.

"She came so hard her whole body lifted up off the couch and slammed into my mouth and she just hung in midair!" Mike is laughing. "Yeah I know she didn't really, but I swear that's what it felt like, like I'd made her come so hard she was floating!"

"I...sort of remember that orgasm," Emily says dreamily, her face flushed and shining with perspiration, her eyes a little unfocused; she is apparently no longer grinding on the chair. "I felt like my whole body was coming apart into little pieces and flying off in every direction. It all becomes rather blurry after that."

"Mom screamed," Mike says. "Nothing she said made sense and it was all filth, but she screamed. It was just a bunch of swearing, mostly variations on 'Fuck,' but with stuff like 'Suck my cunt' thrown in. And she said 'Shit' a lot. A LOT."

"Your mum doesn't normally swear, does she?" asks the interviewer.

"Fuck no!" Mike grins. "You gotta get her revved up before she cuts loose, but when she does...well, it's all filth, all the time. It's hot!"

"What was her orgasm like?"

"Long!" Mike laughs. "Or 'multiple,' more accurately. She just kept coming in waves, over and over and over. She was spasming at first, like bucking against me, but she couldn't keep that up. By the end she was just twitching and whimpering. And the sexiest thing - her eyes rolled back in her head. I'd never seen a woman do that before, where she comes so hard she's just out. Damn!"

"I don't know if I lost consciousness," muses Emily. "I don't think it was that simple. I think I was just in a place where consciousness didn't matter. It was pure bliss, and I was lost in it. There wasn't anything else."

"Eventually I stopped," Mike laughs, shrugging. "I could have kept going but my mouth was getting numb. And besides, I was so hard it was really, really painful. I wanted some relief too! So, down went the pants. I sort of tugged her to the edge of the couch, lined up, and in I went."

"You weren't concerned about getting her consent first?"

Mike looks at the interviewer like he's just said the stupidest thing imaginable. "While I was eating her out she begged me I don't know how many times to fuck her. I think I had consent."

"I was out of it enough that I don't remember him entering me," Emily chuckles. "I was in a complete haze, and I gradually became aware that I was being wonderfully, magnificently fucked. What a perfect thing to wake up to!"

"Did you realize it was Mike?" the interviewer asks.

"That was much too complex a thought for me to be able to have in my head at that moment!" she laughs. "I just knew I was being fucked like I love to be fucked! I remember when I opened my eyes and looked up at Mike, that moment of recognition. 'Oh, it's my son. Of course it is. Only he fucks me like this.'"

"How did you feel at that moment?"

"Ohhhh...perfect," Emily purrs.

"Even though it was your own son?"

"He wasn't my son then. He was my lover, and he was giving me exactly what I needed." Her eyes are glittering, her cheeks flushed with arousal. "All I could do was to tell him to fuck my tight pussy like he owned it!"

"God, when she said that..." Mike grins and whistles. "At that moment, the idea of owning that tight little pussy sounded really, really good! So I fucked it like I owned it."

"My whole body was so sensitive after Mike licked me. I came again," Emily nods, excitement in her eyes. "Almost immediately. Mike's cock fits me so perfectly, and he uses it so fucking well! He wasn't trying to hold me back, and I just -" and her she claps her hands sharply - "orgasmed. I think I'd have come no matter what he did to me!"

"She still had her panties around her knees so I wrapped my arm around her leg and held them to my chest and hammered her silly, right through her orgasm and into the next one and the one after that," Mike tells us excitedly. "She just came and came and came, and when she comes, God damn what her pussy does to my cock! I could have fucked her forever!"

"Were you worried that your father and sister might come home?" the interviewer asks.

Mike laughs. "No! I didn't even remember they existed! They could have walked in and stood next to me for a good look and I wouldn't have stopped!"

"The way I felt with him inside me, coming around his cock as he fucked me," Emily says, her voice thick with excitement. "That. That was more important, in that moment, than my marriage or motherhood or anything else in my life. The purity of what we were doing burned everything else away. It was the two of us making something perfect together and I couldn't worry about anything but getting his cum."

"I told her I was going to come inside her," Mike says, the pleasant tension obvious in how he holds his head. "She begged me to. I told her I owned her pussy, she said it was mine. I told her she was a dirty little slut for me she she howled her agreement. And then I came."

"When I realized he was coming inside me, when I knew that he was giving me what I wanted more than anything else in the world at that moment," Emily tells us, her eyes intense and her face glowing, "I screamed so loud that I know the neighbors heard it. I know they did. They probably heard it four houses down. And I knew I was screaming that loud, begging him to fill me with cum, and didn't care. God, in that moment I wanted people to hear me!"

"She started her last orgasm right when I started coming," Mike says. "She was just...wailing, screaming, moaning. Her pussy was squeezing me like a vise. I was groaning like I was dying. It was...astonishing. Seriously."

"My orgasm was different than the one he'd given me with his mouth," Emily tells us. "It was less...transcendent, I suppose, but more visceral, more immediate. With his mouth he took me out of my body and sent me spinning somewhere...else. His cock brought me into myself completely. I could feel every nerve in my body, every square inch of skin, every hair on my head as it stood on end. The other one had left me hungry for more. This one left me utterly spent. Everything I had was used up in that climax. When he collapsed on top of me, all I could do was breathe. I wasn't capable of anything else."

"Sooo...yeah," Mike says, licking his lips nervously. "I was laying there, kind of half on top of her, still holding her legs, still mostly hard inside her, having just filled my mom's pussy with my cum. There was the typical afterglow and sort of sleepiness - more than normal this time, because there had been so much tension before and it had all been released, or worked out I guess is more accurate, and I was just panting and grinning and feeling great from head to foot, all warm and tingly. And then..."

"And then?" asks the interviewer.

"And then it all came down on me. I'd just fucked my mom. Again. But this time there was no bikers, no threats, nobody forcing us to do anything. We fucked because..." He lapses into an awkward silence.

After a moment, the interviewer prods, "Because?"

"Because we wanted to. Or needed to. I don't know. It was voluntary. It was on us. Nobody else to blame this time."

"I was lost in a haze of endorphins and oxytocin," Emily says, looking much less aroused than she had before - perhaps some time has passed since the previous portion of the interview, because she looks much more composed than she did before, and her untameable hair has been pushed back into place. "I felt as though I was adrift in a warm, beautiful mist. I could feel Mike inside me, not getting very much softer, and I recall thinking how wonderful it felt to have a penis inside me that could still be hard after...ejaculation. I had my eyes closed and was simply savoring all the sensations.

"Then," she continues, "I head Mike gasp softly and felt his body go rigid. I opened my eyes and saw his face. He looked absolutely stricken, aghast. He was looking at me with utter horror, which was when what we had done truly struck me."

"How did it make you feel?" the interviewer asks.

"Physically ill."

"She put both hands on my chest and shoved me," Mike recalls. "I leaned back, and when I pulled out there was a massive...explosion out of her. It looked like a gallon of cum spilled out of her all over the sofa. We didn't have great furniture or anything, but what we had was spotless, and now there was gonna be a massive cumstain on it. For some reason that seemed really important and really awful at the time."

"I leaped up," Emily says. "I needed to get to the toilet because I was certain I was going to vomit."

"Why?"

"Shame. Self-loathing. The instant return of all the tension we'd just alleviated together, compounded by the guilt of having done this on our own. I truly felt as though I'd been beaten in my stomach with a club. I immediately stumbled because my shorts and panties were still around my legs, but I caught myself on the end table. I tried to pull my shorts up, but...unfortunately...well, that was where I made a mess."

"You know, like it wasn't bad enough that we'd just fucked," Mike says ruefully. "But then she stands up and just hurls all over the floor. It's kind of a blow to the ego when your sex partner does that, you know?"

"I don't think I could have felt worse at that moment," Emily admits. "I felt as though I were the world's worst mother, the world's worst wife, and, frankly, the world's worst person, and now I'd added to that the humiliation of befouling my own floor."

"What did you do?" asks the interviewer.

"I pulled up my underwear and shorts and, without looking at him, asked Mike to leave the house."

"The exact words were, 'Go, just go. Please,'" Mike recalls stoically. "So I pulled myself together and went for a drive, just...driving. Nowhere in particular, you know? I don't think I even knew what I was doing. I don't remember it. The first thing I remember is sucking on a strawberry milkshake as I waited at the light at St. Anthony and Johnson, over Northeast. I have no idea how I got there. I don't know if I got the shake at a drive-thru or if I went in, or whether I got a meal with it. I was just sort of...there, feeling like an asshole."

"I cleaned the place up," Emily says. "It took a considerable amount of effort, but I got the couch cushions clean...well, mostly. You could still tell there had been something there if you looked. I hoped no one would really look. I cleaned the floor, aired the place out, threw all my clothes in the washer, and took a very long, very hot shower."

"And after?" the interviewer asks.

"I had managed to pull myself together enough to start worrying about Mike," she says, "so even though I found it very awkward and humiliating, I called him. Unfortunately I heard his phone ringing in his bedroom, which speaks to his state of mind - for a teenager to leave the house without his cellphone generally takes an impending tornado. Of course that made me even more worried, in addition to the guilt and shame."

"I didn't even care where I was going," says Mike. "I just didn't want to go home. Not then. I'd felt lousy before, but how the hell was I supposed to deal with this? I just kept thinking about how much I'd needed it, and how much she'd needed it too. There was no hiding from it now. We ripped into each other like animals, and we did it on our own. How was I supposed to look at mom after that? How was I supposed to face dad?"

"When Bob came back," Eden tells us, "I was baking cookies and painting the hallway between the kitchen and the mud room."

"...at the same time?" the interviewer asks.

She smiles a bit wryly. "Yes. I began by baking cookies, but that involves too much sitting about, which just gave me time to think. We had the paint, so I washed the walls, taped it up, and began to paint the hallway."

"She was a little...oh, what's the word...manic?" Bob tells us. "There was an odd gleam in her eye, like she was sort of out of it. If it was anyone else, I'd have sworn she was on something, but Emily hasn't even smoked weed since the kids were born. I knew Mike wasn't around because his car was gone, so I asked her how it went with him."

"I'm reasonably certain I babbled at him like a madwoman," Emily says.

"She launched into a kind of rant about how well it had gone," Bob says, "but she didn't give any details and, to tell the truth, she didn't make much sense. She just threw out a bunch of adjectives - 'great, fantastic, wonderful, terrific, perfect' - but didn't really connect them into sentences. So I asked her if everything had gotten straightened out between the two of them, and she sort of...lost it."

"I was talking - raving, really," Emily relates, "and, although I don't recall what I said, I do recall that there came a point when I realized that I was simply blubbering and weeping. It was then that I collapsed against him and gave up trying to do anything but cry."

"Honestly I had no idea what had happened," Bob says with a firm shake of his head. "I mean, none at all. I didn't know what had happened originally and I didn't know what had happened that day. All I knew was that there was something bad between them that they hadn't been able to work out, and that Emily was on the edge of a breakdown because of it."

"What did you do?" asks the interviewer.

"I made her take a double dose of Xanax and put her to bed," Bob says. "And then I finished baking the cookies and waited for Mike to get home."

Back to Mike. "I didn't dare go home before I was absolutely, one-hundred-percent certain that dad was back. No way I wanted to be alone in the house with mom, no way. Just the thought of it made me queasy. So I went to a movie, hung out at a mall, tried to eat dinner and failed. I was so antsy that I couldn't focus on anything. It was like seven-thirty when I realized that, if dad did get home before me and they were there alone, she might be telling him everything."

"Did you think she would?" the interviewer inquires.

"I don't know, man!" Mike laughs. "I mean, no, probably not, but maybe. How should I know? So I raced back and got home about eight. I parked in the garage and came in through the mudroom, and I saw that the hallway was like one-tenth painted. The baseboards were taped up, there was a drop cloth on the floor, the whole bit. I thought that was...weird."

"I was waiting for him in the kitchen," Bob says seriously.

"I got like two steps in and dad was like, 'What the HELL did you do to your mother?'" Mike says, puffing his chest out to make him resemble his broader father. "And I was like, "...why, what did she say?' 'Cause I was thinking she spilled the whole thing and I needed to find someplace new to live, right?"

"Mike was evasive, which honestly just made me angrier," Bob relates. "It wasn't that I blamed him necessarily, but I'd had to drug Emily and put her to sleep, it was plain that nothing had been resolved, and the goddamned hallway needed to be painted now because it had been started. I wanted some answers. So I told him to come clean and just tell me what was going on."

"And I was like, 'Wheeeeew!'" Mike laughs. "Because if he was asking, then mom hadn't told him what had really happened. There was no way he'd be asking what had happened if he knew, he'd be demanding explanations or just throwing my shit out on the lawn. So I gave him some bullshit about me and mom fighting - and it wasn't even really bullshit because that's how it had started, but I didn't tell him what we'd been fighting about and I sure as hell didn't tell him I'd bottomed out in her pussy and shot her full of cum right after. I just said that I'd gotten out of line and said some mean stuff, but that mom had too, and we were both mad so neither one of us was willing to back down. I said I'd apologize in the morning."

"I still wanted to know what it was all about," Bob says, "but to tell you the truth I wanted it settled even more, even if I never learned the details. So I accepted Mike's...well, let's call it an explanation, even though it wasn't one, and told him I expected him to follow through with that apology."

"So then I was like, out of there," Mike says. "I went upstairs, locked myself in my bedroom, and started fucking around on Facebook, Twitter, IMing, just trying to keep myself busy enough that I didn't have to think."

"Did it work?" the interviewer asks.

"Oh fuck no," Mike says with a very definite shake of the head. "I could still smell her pussy on me. So eventually I went and took a long, hot shower, but that didn't help really. I went to bed and tried to sleep but once the lights were out and my eyes were closed it was like, bam!" Here he slams his fist into his palm for emphasis. "It was like I was right back there with her on the couch. I could see every expression, every time it changed because of what I did. I could hear her moans and her dirty words. I got so fucking horny, and the more I tried to stop thinking about it...well, don't think about an elephant, right?"

"What did you do?"

Mike smiles, but there's not much joy in it. "I beat it like I caught it stealing and came so hard I gave myself a stomach ache. Then I hated myself to sleep."

The screen goes dark. The credits roll.

Folie a Deux, Episode 03
Can Mike and Emily resist the hunger?  
Author's Note:Thanks to all those who read my previous chapters, to those who faved, and to those who commented. Your comments on Episode 2 were especially valuable, as they helped me clarify the presentation in a crucial way. I'm not sure whether it's considered good etiquette on this site to respond directly in the comments section in one's own story or not, so I figured I'd thank you all here. All feedback, whether positive or negative, is deeply appreciated.

Folie à Deux

Episode 3: Hunger

Over a black screen, we hear a woman's voice. Her diction is careful and precise and her voice carries a thick note of ambivalence. "There are lines no person should cross. And if one is forced across those lines, one shouldn't linger there. The lines are there for a reason, and when one erases them...bad things start to happen."

We now see the speaker, a blonde woman of about 40 years. She has remarkable features, almost Classically Grecian in their chiseled perfection. Her dark eyes are large and intelligent, her mouth wide and full. Her blonde hair hangs in wavy, untameable strands to her shoulders. She is wearing an elegant, plum-colored, Y-neck silk blouse.

We see her name given as Emily Larsen.

"What was between my son and me began as violation forced upon us by thugs, but it wasn't that anymore," she continues. "We had taken that violation and made it a thing of our own volition. We had become our own victimizers...and more specifically, perhaps, I had become my son's victimizer."

We now see a title card in white letters against a black background:

Folie à Deux

Episode 3: Hunger

After a few moments, the title card is replaced by one reading:

June 28

The title card vanishes, replaced by the face of a handsome young man in his early 20s. The familial resemblance to Emily is clear, with the same high cheekbones, sculpted jawline, and pointed and cleft chin. His mouth is a bit smaller and his eyes are a shade of blue reminiscent of Paul Newman's eyes. His hair is dark brown, straight, and cut in a no-nonsense short style.

His name is shown to be Mike Larsen.

"I had it rough the night after we did it on the couch," he tells us in a rich, smooth voice. "I couldn't stand myself. I couldn't stand to be in my own skin. I felt filthy and sick. My mom and I had fucked each other like wild animals, like maniacs. I mean, as soon as dad and Olivia left and mom and I were there alone, there was no way we were getting out of that room without fucking. We had to. And that was the worst feeling I've ever had."

During what follows, as in the previous episodes, only one person is visible at a time -- plainly they were interviewed individually and clips from each interview were stitched together to make a narrative whole.

Emily again. "Bob had given me a whole Xanax that night. Normally I only take half a pill when I take it at all, but a whole pill put me to sleep all night long. I had no dreams that I remembered when I awoke that morning. When I awoke I was in the haze of a drug hangover, and for a several minutes I laid in bed with a sort of vague apprehension but no concrete memory to hang that feeling onto. Eventually, though, I remembered why my genitalia felt pleasantly bruised."

"And then?" The female interviewer from Episode 1 is back.

Emily cocks her head thoughtfully. "It is...interesting how massive, crushing guilt looks through the gauze of a narcotic hangover. The guilt is horrific and very obviously painful, but it's held at an arm's length so one may view it with...not objectivity, precisely, but at a distance. When one is immersed in guilt it feels like a sea of quicksand, a glutinous mass that holds one in place and forces one to relive the sin over and over again. However, from a distance it more resembles an iron maiden."

"An iron maiden?" the interviewer asks.

"Yes. It looks like an iron maiden with the doors gaping open. One knows one must enter. One sees each spike and can tell where it will pierce one's flesh when the doors are closed. But because it's being held at a distance, the feeling it evokes is abstract dread rather than immediate misery. I spent the first two hours of that morning lying in bed and contemplating where those spikes would drive into me when the drug wore off and the doors closed."

We see a man of approximately 40, handsome, with icy blue eyes and short, straight, dark hair that is going gray at the temples. His name is given as Bob Larsen.

"I'd left Emily and Mike alone the day before so they could work things through," he tells us, "but when I got home Emily had a breakdown and Mike was nowhere to be found. I'd had to drug Emily to get her to sleep. I was tired of all this nonsense. I wanted it resolved, or at least out in the open where we could deal with it. And I wanted the damned hallway finished."

"Emily had begun painting the hallway between the mud room and the kitchen," the interviewer supplies.

Bob nods. "It needed to be finished, and I wasn't going to do it. But more than that, I wanted the tension in the house gone. I was starting to think of it like a boil, something that needed to be lanced and drained even though it might stink at first."

"Did you have any more idea of what the problem was?" the interviewer asks.

Bob sighs heavily. "Not really. Well, not at all. The fact that my wife and our son had had sex twice never entered my mind. But I was starting to think something very bad had happened -- a crime, maybe."

"A crime? What sort of crime?"

Bob shrugs. "I didn't know. I thought maybe Mike had stolen something from one of Emily's friends. I thought she'd found out he was involved in drugs. I thought...well, I thought that maybe the wreck of the minivan was because of a hit and run accident, that maybe they'd killed someone out in the middle of nowhere and were cracking up because of it."

"Did you think that was likely?" the interviewer asks.

"No," Bob admits, "but I knew it was serious. And even now, it sounds like a likelier explanation than what really happened."

Mike again. "I knew dad had reached his breaking point. I don't even think it was mom breaking down that did it, I think it was the hallway. For some reason that really got under his skin. I came downstairs for breakfast and he lit right into me, yelling at me about the night before and the hallway -- which, I want to point out, I had nothing to do with -- and wanting to know what was going on. No way I was gonna tell him that, so I told him I'd finish the hallway. I thought that would calm him down, but he just kept going at me for another few minutes before he went upstairs to check on mom."

We then see a photograph of a pretty girl who generally resembles Bob, except with Emily's blonde mane, which she wears pulled back into a ponytail. She is wearing a highschool cheerleader's uniform. Her name is given as Olivia Larsen.

After a few seconds, the still image is replaced by grainy footage of a women's lacrosse game between Boston College and Harvard. A single Boston College player is circled and then zoomed in upon, with the footage getting correspondingly grainier. We see the text, "Four days before the filming of this episode, Olivia Larsen sustained an injury during a game of lacrosse." Moments after this text appears, we see Olivia turn her head to look back as she's running, which unfortunately causes her to miss the fact that a Harvard player has leaped in front of her. Olivia takes the other player's knee directly to the middle of her face, which we see as the film freezes for a moment.

We then see Olivia. Her nose is bandaged and her eyes are blackened. She has changed her hair color since her high school days, opting for a candy apple red, which hangs in dramatic, loose strands below shoulder length. The overall effect is somewhat reminiscent of a raccoon which has been set on fire, but she doesn't appear daunted or ashamed by the injury she bears; in fact, her bearing is one of cocky, tough-girl pride.

When she speak, her voice is rather nasal due to her nose injury. "I wasn't as pissed off as dad was by the weirdness between mom and Mike, but then I was pretty self-absorbed back then. But I definitely noticed it. I mean, how could I not? I was at the breakfast table when dad unloaded on Mike that day, and I was like, 'Damn dad, chill, it's not like Mike killed anybody.'"

"Did you say that?" asks the interviewer.

Olivia chuckles. "No! I wasn't going to stick my neck out for Mike then, especially when I didn't know what was going on. But I did think that maybe I should try to find out what the deal was so we could get everything all settled down."

Bob again. "I went upstairs to check on Emily. She was awake but too groggy to talk, so I kissed her, told her I'd call her at lunch, wished her a good day, and left for work."

"I wasn't quite as groggy as I pretended to Bob," Emily admits, "but I wasn't in any condition to talk about the situation, if for no other reason than in my befuddled state I was likely to blurt something I shouldn't have. I told him I loved him and to have a good day."

"Once dad was gone, I asked Mike what was up," Olivia tells us as she reappears. "I knew that my style could be a little, um, grating on him, so I tried to tone it down."

Mike appears again, saying, "I was surprised when Olivia asked me nicely what was up. We weren't talking much in those days except to fight. And it was funny, because that actually made a bigger impression on me than dad did with all his yelling. It was like, if Olivia is being pleasant to me then this has gotten out of control. I knew I had to talk to mom once she was up and around."

"He told me that things had gotten heated the night before with mom," Olivia says, and then adds with a smirk, "Turns out he was telling the truth, but not the whole truth. Anyway, he said that he'd been a jerk to her and he was planning to apologize that day and get things settled down. I think I actually told him I loved him, which I totally do, but I don't think I'd said it since I was ten."

Mike reappears, still looking surprised. "Yeah, she said she loved me. I wouldn't have been more shocked if she'd said she was running off to be a nun. She grew up a lot when she went off to college, but back then she was pretty hard to take, so her saying that was cool. Awkward, but cool."

"So then I was like, 'Good, problem solved!'" Olivia laughs. "I seriously thought that was the end of it, like all I had to do was tell Mike to deal with it and it would be dealt with. So then I went off to do my day and was all pleased with myself."

"Once Olivia left, I got to finishing up the hallway," says Mike. "It wasn't a big job or anything, so I was just cleaning up when Mom came wandering downstairs."

"I felt as though I still had a head full of cotton," says Emily as we see her again, "but I couldn't stay in bed any longer. I wasn't sure if I was alone in the house. I knew Bob was at work, of course, and I knew Olivia would be off with her friends in the morning and then to her job at Arby's in the afternoon. Mike's summer job, helping a family friend with his landscaping business, was more unpredictable, and I wasn't positive whether he had to work that day or not. I had no work that day, but I could hardly hide in in the bedroom from my own son for the rest of my life, and of course I was hungry as well, so I wrapped myself in my bathrobe and went to the kitchen to make some toast."

"I'd cleaned everything up and was just heading for the shower when I literally bumped into mom coming around the corner," Mike says. "She was in a sort of daze, from the Xanax I guess, and she walked face-first right into my chest before she even realized I was there. I sort of grabbed her. It was a reflex, I took hold of her to keep her from falling down, right? But the first time I see her after we fucked and I immediately throw my arms around her. Like, not what I woulda planned."

"As slowed as I felt, I didn't even register that I had walked into Mike before his arms went around me." says Emily. "I gazed up at him rather stupidly, I confess, before the awkwardness of the situation really struck me."

"What did you say?" the interviewer asks.

"I said good morning."

Mike again. "She kind of mumbled a good morning at me. She was a little out of it. I let her go and stepped back kinda quickly. She said she needed toast. I had paint on my face. I let her pass to the kitchen."

"It was advantageous to be so befuddled,: Emily observes. "Walking into Mike's arms as soon as I got out of bed would have panicked me otherwise. As it was, I could simply be glad that we didn't fall into a lustful kiss. And, I must say, a breakfast of bread and fruit, and especially strong coffee, did wonders to clear my mind."

"It wasn't like I was turned on, but I took a cold shower anyway," says Mike. "A long, cold shower. Then I came down and had a long, rational talk with mom."

"I was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee that had gone cold, simply lost in thought, when Mike came in," Emily says. "He sat down across the table from me and said, in a very rational and calm voice, 'Mom, we need to talk.' Of course we needed to talk, so that was what we did."

"I'm not sure why we could be rational and open about it in the morning, when the day before we'd danced around the subject and then fucked," Mike muses. "Maybe we just blew off enough steam the day before that we could see it in a more realistic way, or maybe, like, enough time had passed since we first did it? Or like, we needed to do it again before we could make sense of it? I don't know. It just seemed to fall into place."

"Mike began by telling me that he loved me," Emily relates. "He said it with a directness and a sincerity that very much put me at ease. It was exactly the right thing to do. I told him I loved him as well, and he assured me that he knew that."

"She said that she was proud of the way I'd handled myself with the bikers, and that I'd saved both our lives there," he says. "I said I was just as proud of her, and that if I saved her, she saved me just as much."

Emily again, smiling gently. "After all the stress of guilt and avoidance, after all the recrimination and the suffering we'd put each other through over the past few days, it was such a profound relief to have a calm, mature, and sensible talk! I told him that the pleasure we'd taken in it was nothing to be ashamed of -- we simply didn't need to feel guilt for it. It had been forced upon us and we'd made the best of it, so there could be no shame attached to it. Certainly it would not have been better had it been painful and unpleasant for us both."

"She brought up the fact that it was good, which, like, took this massive load off, you know?" Mike says. "'Cause it was awesome, but I wasn't gonna just throw that out there with my mom, right? But when she laid it out, I could agree that, yeah, it had been great sex. It wasn't like I was supposed to know my mom was a great lay, but I did and there was nothing I could do about it, so in the light of day I was like, yeah I know this, and it gives me a better appreciation of who you are as a person. Even if it's weird that I had that appreciation, it was still something that was good about her, not something bad. So I could take that and love her all the more because I knew it."

"Of course it felt good to hear that!" Emily laughs. "It felt wonderful! It was such a relief to hear him put it in those terms. And him saying it allowed me to realize, and to tell him, that I was delighted that he would be able to keep my future daughter-in-law, whomever she might be, happy in that manner. It made me prouder of the man he had become."

"In spite of the talk about sex -- and it got fairly...direct there, it wasn't a sexual talk," Mike says. "I mean...it was a sexual talk, but it wasn't a sensual talk. Neither of us were getting turned on or tempted to do anything again. It was like, 'Hey, you're awesome,' 'Oh, you're awesome too, that's cool to know.' Which was great. It felt sooooo good to be able to lay it out there, because once it was out in the open we could just stop feeling shame. We recognized it, we said it, we could move on and put what we'd done behind us."

The interviewer asks Emily, "Did you discuss what you did the day before, and why?"

"We did, of course," Emily nods. "We both came to the conclusion that we had done what we had done because we were trying so hard to avoid dealing with our actions and the feelings they aroused. We attached no blame, we simply agreed that it had been the result of repressed emotions expressing themselves unhelpfully, and now that we had addressed things, there would be no more of that. We both felt entirely confident of that conclusion, and of course we were both mostly wrong about the causes and entirely wrong about the future. We couldn't know that then, of course."

"It sounds like I hear a 'but' in there."

Emily immediately opens her mouth to contradict, but closes it again. In a moment she says, in a very thoughtful tone, "If I am being entirely truthful, I must admit that a part of me knew that we weren't addressing the issue completely honestly. Mike, of course, couldn't have known that because of his age and relative inexperience. I, however, was old enough to know better, even though I wasn't willing to admit that at the time."

"I thought we were solving it," Mike concedes. "I thought we were laying it all out and once that was done we'd never have to deal with wanting each other anymore, ever again. But, like, when we put our bodies together they didn't just throw off sparks, they burst into flames. We couldn't just walk away from that and expect to live together and see each other every day and expect it not to happen again. But I didn't know that then."

"We talked for quite some time," Emily says, "and long before the end, things had become quite lighthearted. We began to joke and laugh about various things that had happened on the trip -- not about the incident with the bikers, of course, but about things that had happened with the people we visited or in San Francisco. We joked about our irrationality. We even joked about the accident, although Lou's demise was still something of a tender spot for me. It was during that period that Bob called."

"I'm not even sure I expected Emily to be out of bed," Bob tells us. "I expected things to keep heading from bad to worse. But Emily answered the phone in a chipper voice. Mike was in the room and they were talking and laughing and joking around. She said that they'd had a really good talk and settled things between them, and this time I believed her. Like I said, she's the worst liar in the world, and this time I could tell she meant what she said. And I hear Mike chipping in from the background. When I hung up the phone I actually felt relaxed for the first time since the wedding. It took a huge load off my mind."

"When I finished talking with Bob, I asked Mike what he planned to do that day," Emily says. "He said he was going to see Miss Williamson." There is something cautious and deliberate in how she says that name that suggests she's concealing something.

We see a photograph of a lovely, petite redhead in her late teens. She is smiling hugely and her lively green eyes suggest intelligence and playfulness. It is labeled Hannah Williamson.

"Hannah was a girl I'd liked for a couple of years, but things just never worked out for us to get together," we hear Mike say. "But this was the time if ever there was a time, so I wanted to call her and see if we could get together."

"Was there more to it than that?" the interviewer asks.

After a moment, Mike nods. "Yeah. I mean, sure there was. I needed to get mom out of my mind and I couldn't do that hanging around the house. I needed to get out and do stuff. And I needed to do stuff with a girl to get me past what mom and I'd done. It didn't have to be sex, but it had to be fun, hanging out, doing stuff, like, laughing and being teenagers, right? Like, it had to be normal. I had to do normal stuff with a normal girl to get past the weirdness."

"Did you think that would work?" asks the interviewer.

"Yeah, sure. I mean...well, yeah. I hoped it would. Sure."

"But the physical connection you and your mother shared --"

"Wasn't like anything I'd ever had with anyone," Mike finishes for her. "Yeah. But I was 18, it wasn't like I had all the experience in the world. Just because I'd never had sex as good as I had with my mom didn't mean the next person I was with wouldn't be better, right? So, like, get out there and hang around with a girl I like and maybe things happen and maybe it makes forgetting what mom and I did easier."

"When he mentioned Miss Williamson, I knew that we had really solved nothing with our discussion," Emily tells the camera with a level stare. "I immediately felt a harsh stab of jealousy that was wholly unmotherly. For an instant I felt as though a lover was flaunting his infidelity to me, and I felt all the horrible things one feels in that situation."

"Such as?" prompts the interviewer.

"Anger. Disgust. Rejection," Emily says. "Followed immediately by two fully-formed and mutually contradictory ideas: the first, that I deserved better of Mike, that I deserved...fidelity, and the second, that I was a truly horrible person for feeling jealous or possessive at all."

"Mike had dated before?"

"Oh my, of course!" Emily laughs. "As you know, he's a very attractive young man. He never had problems attracting feminine attention!"

"And had you ever been jealous or possessive before with him?"

"No," Emily replies with a shake of her head. "Certainly not in that manner. I had of course experienced typical parental anxiety when my oldest child began to date, and with it the attendant feelings of impending old age, but this was a very different set of emotions. This was a lover scorning me -- that was what it felt like, I should say. It felt bitter and immediate and almost deliberately cruel."

"What did you do?"

"I instantly recognized those emotions as being...improper," she replies judiciously. "We had so recently finished a talk about putting all our actions behind us, and yet I was experiencing jealousy as though I were his wronged girlfriend instead of his mother. I felt dreadful for feeling those things, but I found that I couldn't put them from my mind. Not wholly. And that bothered me tremendously."

"And you told him that?"

"Of course not!" Emily says. "I told him I hoped he had a wonderful day."

"There was this...hesitation in mom's reaction," Mike says, "and this little flash in her eyes, this kind of...well, like she always had when I did something wrong and was trying to get away with it. It was this 'I know what you're up to and you're busted' look. But it was there and gone like that," and here he snaps his fingers, "so I wasn't even sure I saw it. I mean...no, I was sure I saw it. But I decided to ignore it. I had to ignore it. If we were gonna get back to normal, I had to ignore it. I called Hannah and asked her if she wanted to get together, and she was like, 'Hell yeah!'"

Another picture of Hannah appears with the legend Hannah Williamson declined invitations to appear in this documentary.

"We went to lunch that day," Mike continues in voiceover. "We went to Sebastian Joe's and got burgers and milkshakes and then walked around Lake Harriet. It started raining buckets and we ended up running and taking shelter in the Bandshell. That was where I kissed her for the first time as it poured outside -- just like out of a romance movie."

"How did that feel to you?"

"I like kissing."

"I mean, did it feel right kissing another girl after what you and your mother had done?"

"It felt...like I needed to," Mike says slowly. "I mean it was a nice kiss. Fine."

"That sounds underwhelming."

He shrugs. "When I kissed mom, steam shot out of my ears and my socks rolled up and down. When I kissed Hannah it was a nice kiss with a nice girl."

"Were you disappointed?"

He pauses to consider, then shakes his head. "No, I didn't let myself get disappointed. I needed to do it so I did it, and then I did it again and again until some guy told us to knock it the hell off."

"I avoided thinking about what Mike and Miss Williamson were doing," Emily says. "I prepared everything for dinner that night and then went to practice for several hours at the University. Of course faculty can use the facilities there for free, which saved money renting a studio space."

"And you weren't jealous?" the interviewer asks.

"No I wasn't." She pauses pregnantly, then adds, "For the most part."

"For the most part?"

She shakes her head dismissively. "Oh, minor thoughts crept in from time to time. If I had ever met Miss Williamson I didn't recall her, so I didn't know what she looked like. My mind filled in the blanks in a specific fashion."

"Which was?"

Emily begins to look irritated at this line of questioning. "I believe I imagined her as an Amazonian brunette with perfect hair and very large breasts. It hardly matters."

Mike looks amused as he reappears on camera. "Mom's always been self-conscious about her hair. From time to time she'd tried to straighten it or, like, perm it, I don't know what women do with their hair, but she did it, and it never worked out. It always just looked weird until it grew back out. And of course she's always been worried about her boobs, because they're small. I love 'em, but she's always wanted them to be bigger."

Olivia appears again. "I remember dinner that night being the first actually relaxed meal we had since we got back from the wedding. Mike and mom were relaxed and happy and goofing around, and of course I assumed that was due to my brilliant words of wisdom. Dad was delighted that they were back to normal, but once or twice I caught mom looking at Mike funny."

"Funny how?" the interviewer asks.

"Like...when two friends of yours had sex and they're pretending like they didn't only one of them can't quite pull it off," Olivia says. "Just that little possessive glance."

"You knew they'd had sex?" the interviewer asks, plainly surprised.

"No! I mean, God no, of course not! But there was that little bit of tension still there and that's what it felt like. A lot of it was from mom's side, which makes sense because she's the worst liar ever born. But some of it came from Mike too, like he'd be looking at her when she moved around the room or whatever."

"What did you make of it?"

Olivia smiles. "That maybe part of what they'd argued about was that Mike was doing something with some girl mom didn't like. Or hell, maybe he knocked somebody up. My friends were always fawning over him."

"You knew it was something sexual, though?"

"I didn't know," Olivia admits, "but it sure seemed like it. And dad was completely oblivious, of course. He didn't pick up on any of this for the longest time, not until it hit him right in the face."

In white letters against a black background, we see:

June 29 - July 2

"Things got hot fast between me and Hannah," Mike tells us. "There had always been interest there, and now that we had the chance it just kind of blew up into the classic whirlwind summer romance."

"You had sex?" the interviewer asks.

"Yeah, after the second date, in the back seat of my car," he says.

"How was it?"

"Good. I mean...yeah, it was good. I know what you're asking, and no it wasn't as good as what I'd had with mom, but it was good. It was good sex."

"I knew when I saw Mike the day after he and Miss Williamson...became carnally involved," Emily says, her distaste very obvious. "It was wholly apparent. Her stink was practically coming off of him in waves. It was disgusting."

"The day after Hannah and I did it, mom was staring me daggers," Mike says. "Serious 'If looks could kill' stuff. She could tell what I did with Hannah. I don't know how, but she was letting me know she knew."

"I handled it perfectly rationally," Emily says primly. "He was an adult and of course I had no romantic claim on him. If he wanted to flounce about with a trollop it was no concern of mine."

"Mom was like glaring at Mike that morning," Olivia says. "I mean it was really...angry. I figured she'd gotten a call from some girl's dad or something about something he did."

"I just ate and got out of there," Mike shrugs. "I had a long day at work lined up and I didn't want to fight with mom again...not the way our last fight ended."

"Were you thinking about Mike?" the interviewer asks Emily.

"I presume you mean sexually?" Emily asks.

"Yes."

"I...was, yes. By the second or third day he'd been seeing Miss Williamson, I found myself wondering what they did together. I knew they were having sex, but I wondered precisely what they did...what he did to her, what she did to him, whether it was good...whether it was better than it was with me. Whether..." She pauses and blushes. "Well, I assume you grasp the general content of my thoughts."

"And was the guilt still present?"

"It...was, yes. Of course it was."

"But...?"

Emily blushes a little deeper. "But it was lessening, and it wasn't keeping me from thinking inappropriate thoughts."

"Such as?"

Emily blushes a little deeper still, frowns, and shifts uncomfortably. "Thoughts about what had happened between Mike and me. Detailed thoughts. At length. When I was alone or...or when I had worked up a sweat dancing. Then especially. I would feel the sweat on my body and think about the sweat we had made together and...well."

"Did you have these thoughts often?"

"I shouldn't say I had them often," Emily says immediately, and after a moment clarifies, "Not constantly. I was able to get work done, teach lessons, practice for the show I was in, function as an adult human being. I wasn't incapacitated by thoughts about him."

"Did you do anything about those thoughts?"

"No. No, not then. Not for a few days."

"Right away I started noticing she was acting different," Mike says when we see him again.

"In what way?" the interviewer asks.

"She was showing off for me. Not showing off. I mean, she was...well, she was kind of posing."

"Posing?"

"Yeah, from my first date with Hannah. When she was alone with me or when nobody else could see her but me, she'd kind of strike a pose. Like she'd bend over and give me a long look at her ass, or she'd cross her legs. She always wore shorts in the summer so she had a hell of a lot of leg to cross, and she was making sure I was looking."

"I was not behaving any differently then than I did at any other point," Emily says demurely but adamantly. "I felt things I knew I ought not to have been feeling, but I would certainly not have flaunted myself to my son when I was attempting to control myself. I have always worn tight shorts in summer and I certainly was wearing them then as well, but in exactly the same way I was wearing my customary loose tee shirts and baggy tops. In other words, I was wearing precisely what I had always worn and acting in precisely the way I had always acted. If Mike was noticing me more, then that was because of what we had done and what he wanted to do again, rather than anything I was doing."

Mike is seen looking pensive. "I...guess it's possible I was noticing her more, sure. I mean, yeah, of course I was, right? She's gorgeous and I lived with her, and now she was a sexual being to me. But there's no way that's all it was. Usually when she got like a pan or something out of a lower cupboard she'd crouch down to get it, but now she was standing with her legs straight and her ankles together and bending over so her ass was sticking out right there, and her ass is amazing. And she never did that before. And she'd cross her legs and sort of dangle her shoe off her foot and then run her hands down her legs."

"I never did that," Emily insists as she reappears on screen.

"Which part?" the interviewer asks. "Bending over, or the thing with crossing your legs?"

"Well both of --" She stops, reconsiders, and then says, "Crossing my legs in that manner. I may have bent over provocatively on...several occasions when Mike was in the room during the next two or three days. I may have."

"So, like, I was trying to spend as much time as possible away from the house, right?" Mike says. "Because she kept doing that over the next couple days, and when she did, I thought about what we'd done, and I didn't want to think about that, and once I'd start thinking about it it was hard to stop. So I just tried to avoid her."

"What did you do?" the interviewer asks.

"I hung out with friends, I worked out, I worked a lot, I spent a lot of time with Hannah. A lot of time with Hannah. By July 2nd, basically I only went home to sleep."

Again we see white letters against a black background:

July 3

"I recall very clearly that it was the third of July," Emily says, "because I was making preparations for the family to attend the annual gathering the chair of the department holds every year for the Fourth of July holiday. This was something the family had always enjoyed, since my coworkers and their significant others were artistic, bohemian, expressive sorts who tended toward...interesting behavior. And of course the department chair had a lovely house on the shore of Lake Minnetonka and always provided excellent food. It was always an enjoyable experience.

"That day, I had a practice for my show in the afternoon but nothing in the morning, so I decided to catch up on housework. Mike's bedroom door was open and I thought he had gone for the day -- I hadn't seen very much of him over the past few days so I wasn't aware of his schedule. I approached the door and I heard him talking on the telephone, and it was apparent by his tone that he was talking to Miss Williamson."

"You sound as though that bothered you," the interviewer observes.

"Of course not," Emily says too quickly. "Why ought it have? He was free to do as he wished with anyone he chose."

"I was talking with Hannah about what we were gonna do that day," Mike tells us. "Her whole family was gone for the day, but she stayed around because she had to work that morning. I had to work too, but I was going to be off by mid-afternoon, so I was going over there and we were gonna get crazy all afternoon and evening."

"He was talking loudly enough that I could overhear it from the hallway," Emily says, a flush creeping up her cheeks, "and he was describing what he intended to do to Miss Williamson that day. The terms he was using were...vulgar and...descriptive. I'm sure that if he knew I was there he would have moderated his tone, or at least his volume, but as it was he was very florid in his terms."

"I knew she was there," Mike says with a grin as we see him again. "Of course I knew. I heard her coming down the hallway. She was standing right by the open doorway -- I could see her shadow on the door from the hall light. I heard her gasp when I told Hannah I was going to bend her over the kitchen table and fuck her from behind."

"Did you consider talking more quietly, or toning down your language?" the interviewer asks.

Mike laughs. "I wasn't even talking that dirty before she started listening in. I figured, fuck it, she wants to eavesdrop, I'll give her something to eavesdrop on, right?"

"His filthy language, and the obvious relish with which he was using it, was incredibly uncouth," Emily sniffs, her nostrils flaring and her flush creeping a bit higher, "but it had an effect on me."

"An effect?" the interviewer asks.

"Yes. It was..arousing," she explains, getting redder. "Also, it made me rather angry."

"Because of the vulgarity?"

"Nnnnnooooo," Emily says slowly. "Because it was being directed toward Miss Williamson."

"Instead of...you?"

In a long closeup in which she turns bright red, Emily makes no reply.

"So I got into it pretty good," Mike says with a smile. "I told Hannah that I wanted to watch her down on her knees with my cock in her mouth and look in her eyes as she swallowed it. I told her I wanted to put her on her back on her mother's bed, spread her legs, and use my mouth on her until she screamed. I told her I wanted her to wrap her legs around my waist and squeeze my cock with her pussy as I fucked her brains out. She was getting really hot on the other end of the line too, because I'd never talked to her like that before, so she wanted me to get the hell over there and actually do what I was promising."

"Were you getting excited too?" asks the interviewer.

"Well yeah, of course!" Mike laughs. "I mean I was talking filthy to my girlfriend and my mom was listening in, and both of them were getting worked up by it. I'm not made of stone."

"You knew that your mother was getting excited?"

"She was panting. She's not quiet when she gets worked up -- she can't be, she doesn't know how. When I told Hannah that I was gonna make her beg me for my cum, I heard mom gasp like she does when I took her nipple into my mouth. The way her shadow was moving, I think she was touching herself."

Emily is now the color of a ripe strawberry. "I found it thrilling. Shamefully thrilling. I shifted the basket to my left hand and..."

"And?'

"And touched my breast," she continues, barely audible. "My nipple. Through my shirt. And then...I put my hand between my legs."

"Thinking about Mike doing those things with Hannah?"

Emily fidgets for a bit, then whispers, "Thinking about him doing those things to me."

"I heard this whimper, this kind of moan," Mike tells us. "It sounded like mom was getting hot. And frustrated. I thought that was hilarious, getting her wound up when she was the one trying to listen in."

"And you were alright with that?" the interviewer asks.

"At first, yeah. I thought it was funny. Kind of hot, right? But harmless, like getting her all worked up. She'd been trying to get me worked up, so this was payback. But then I started thinking, like, God, she sounds so hot that she might come in and try to do something about it. And I didn't want that!"

"Didn't you?" the interviewer asks.

"No! Of course not!" Mike tells us, not wholly convincingly. "It was one thing to get her wound up, but I didn't want to do anything more with her. I mean, she'd been making me look at her, right? So this was just throwing it back at her. But we couldn't cross that line again. So I changed the subject and started talking about when she'd be home, when I'd be off work, that kinda stuff, and headed for the door. By the time I got there, mom was gone and her bedroom door was closed."

"The moment I heard Mike heading for the door, I ran back to my bedroom," Emily says, the camera in tight closeup. "I couldn't bear to see him then -- he would know what I was thinking! It would have been so humiliating!"

"Hadn't you been trying to tempt him though?" the interviewer asks. "Bending over in front of him, making him look --"

"Yes, but I -- I had been listening to him!" Emily interjects, so red that she looks as though she might burst. "I had been eavesdropping as he said those things and his words made me think things and..and touch myself! And he would know! I couldn't have borne that!"

"So what did you do?" asks the interviewer.

"I threw myself on my bed and clenched my legs together, trying to make the heat go away. I heard him go past my door, down the steps, and outside. I heard his car start and drive off. I tried to make the heat go away. I did."

After a closeup of Emily's red, uncomfortable face and a long silence, the interviewer asks, "But?"

"But it didn't go away. In the silence I could hear his voice, hear his words, and I began to remember what we'd done. How he'd touched me. How he felt when I touched him. The way he felt inside me." Her breathing is becoming shallower and more rapid, her eyes getting wider. "The heat became a flame. I couldn't control myself. I...touched myself. Over my clothes at first, but before very long I was nude. I don't even remember taking off my clothes, but I did. The moment I touched my pussy, I came. I came very hard."

"And then?"

"And then I came again, and then I came again. I kept hoping that each orgasm would make the images I had in my head, the images of Mike and I, go away, but they wouldn't leave. I couldn't drive them out. They kept getting sharper and more vivid until I swear I could feel his lips on mine, his tongue on mine, his hands on my breasts, his skin on mine, the sweat we shared, his cock in my hands, his cock in my mouth, his tongue on my pussy, the way he took control and owned me when he fucked me. I couldn't stop thinking about it! I tried but I couldn't. I don't know how many times I came but it wasn't enough to make me stop wanting him. Every time I came, I wanted him more.

"Eventually I had to stop masturbating because I had to go to practice, but by then I could barely think of anything but what we'd done...and what I wanted to do. What I needed to do again. I went to practice with the knowledge that I simply had to have him again. I had to have my son again. I still knew it was wrong, but that didn't matter. I needed him. I was going to get him."

Against a black screen, we see in white letters:

July 4

Mike again. "The morning of the Fourth was weird. I was looking forward to the party because get-togethers at her boss' place were always a lot of fun. I mean there were other kids there around my age, younger, older, whatever, but I'd grown up with them right? Like seeing them three or four times a year, but I'd been seeing them for as long as I could remember. It was like they were distant cousins or something. Plus, the place was gorgeous. But I knew something was up with mom."

"How did you know?" the interviewer asks.

"Oh man. The way she looked at me when she saw me first thing in the morning. There was a fire in her eyes like you wouldn't believe. It was in the kitchen, I come in -- and dad and Olivia are in the room, right? So I come in and Mom turns around and she looks like...like a tiger. Like, the light was coming in from the window behind her and sort of lighting up her hair orange around the sides and she's staring at me like I'm an antelope or something, like she's going to come after me right then and there."

"I'm sure it was obvious to him," Emily tells us. "I'd had trouble sleeping the night before because it was difficult for me to stop thinking about him. He'd awakened me, sexually speaking, from a long slumber, and when one wakes up from a long slumber, one is famished. I was famished."

"She didn't just undress me with her eyes," Mike says. "That would have been awkward enough with dad and Olivia right there. No, she fucked me with her eyes. The look in her eyes was exactly like it was when we'd had sex, this kind of hungry, savage, demanding stare. She locked eyes with me and dared me to look away. And I couldn't at first."

"That moment, in the kitchen, must only have lasted a few seconds," Emily muses, "but it felt much longer to me, and, I am sure, to him as well. I felt as though there were some sort of...electrical charge, I suppose, though that's a poor phrase for it. There was some sort of current running between us, so powerful that it singed the air like lightning. He grew excited instantly, and I stared at it, directly at it."

"She looks at my hard-on and licks her lips," Mike says as we see him again. "With dad and Olivia right there, she stares at the tent in my shorts and looks horny enough that she might jump me right there. I stopped in my tracks and stared back."

"What were you thinking?" the interviewer asks.

"How it would be if we fucked again," he replies. "I could imagine grabbing her, pulling her shorts off, and just sinking balls-deep into her. I mean, it was super-vivid, like right there, right? It was like my cock remembered what she felt like inside and was playing it back. It wasn't as intense as it was when I was inside her, but every nerve in my cock lit up, pow."

"What did you do?"

Mike grins. "I think I asked if there were any Cheerios left."

"I did see Emily give Mike a stare when he walked into the room," Bob admits when we see him again. "I thought, uh-oh, whatever was between them isn't over, she's still mad at him.'"

"You still didn't see anything sexual in it?" the interviewer asks.

"You keep asking that like that should have been something that occurred to me," Bob replies, half-amused and half-irritated. "But why would it be? Do normal parents suspect their spouses of carrying on affairs with their children? Is that something that would even enter someone's mind without concrete proof?"

"I totally wondered if something was up a little after breakfast," says Olivia as she reappears on our screen. "Mom always wore these big, ugly-ass tee-shirts, floppy things that looked like sacks on her. But she asked me if she could borrow one of my shirts. She was a little bit bigger than me, like in the frame? And so any shirt of mine would be small on her anyway. But then, like, I already wore my shirts tight, so a shirt of mine would be, like, painted on her. But yeah, I lent her this cute little red shirt. She had a tight, slammin' body so she could totally rock it."

"But you knew something was up between her and Mike?" the interviewer asks.

"No! Oh no, not then. I thought maybe she was flirting with some guy from work or something and wanted to dress to impress."

"And you were fine with that?"

Olivia shrugs. "Mom and dad were always more like...cordial than passionate, you know? I mean I didn't really think about it much, because ew? But if I did think about it, I don't think I'd have been surprised to find out that either of them were doing something on the side. But it wasn't like they ever fought or even really like, disagreed or anything, so what difference did it make? Let her have her fun."

"I absolutely wore that shirt to catch Mike's eye," Emily confesses with a shrug. "I wanted him to do more than notice me. I wanted him to want me. I wanted him to notice that my nipples got hard when I looked at him. Olivia's shirt was like a second skin on me, so he would have to confront that fact."

"At this point you were deliberately trying to seduce your son," the interviewer states.

"Yes."

"You must still have felt guilt?"

Emily considers for a few moments, then says, "I was aware that I would feel guilt after we had sex. I was hardly blind to that. However, as...randy as I was feeling, future guilt for one more commission of an act already twice-committed did not seem to me to be a major consideration. I knew I could live with the guilt. I was not sure I could live without Mike back inside me."

"So now I was like...yikes," Mike tells us as we see him again. "There was no way mom would look at me like that and not try somethin'. So, like, all of a sudden I was feeling this sense of dread about the day."

"Just dread?" asks the interviewer.

"I...you know, what I was dreading was astonishing sex with someone I loved, so it was mingled with, um, anticipation, I guess you'd say. Yeah. It was like, 'I want it, I don't want it, I want it, I don't want it.'"

"But you knew it was going to happen?"

"I knew she was gonna try to make it happen. I didn't know if I'd be strong enough to want to stop her."

We now see a series of photographs of a large, elegant house on the shore of a large, gorgeous lake. One photo shows the front of the house, a brick-and-glass wall that speaks of money and class; the next photo shows a gorgeous yard, shaded in parts and including a gazebo; the next is of more of the yard sloping down to the lake shore with the far side dimly visible in the distance and the water littered with brightly-colored sails of white-hulled boats; the last shows a dock with a moored sailboat, a small waterskiing boat, and six jetskis.

"We weren't even close to the first ones to arrive at the park-and-ride where everybody went to get the shuttle they'd hired," Mike tells us as he reappears on screen. "Olivia didn't bother to grab any of the stuff we brought, she just jumped out of the car and started talking to the girl from the next car over. Dad started to reach for stuff, but mom was like, 'Oh, never mind, Mike and I'll get it.' And I was like, OK, here it comes."

"Of course I wanted Bob out of the way," Emily tells us with a shrug and a grin that isn't as guilty as she might hope it is. "I was planning to seduce my son, and having my husband there while I did it would make it exponentially more difficult, wouldn't it?"

"Still no hesitation about the seduction?" the interviewer asks.

"Less than ever. All I'd thought about on the drive to the party how I would convince Mike to be with me again, where we would go, how it would feel -- my entire body was aroused, every nerve alive and humming. I felt like my skin was dancing on my body. I was so excited and aroused that I had insisted we drive with the windows down, even though it was warm enough for air conditioning, simply so my scent wouldn't alert everyone in the car."

"I'd been in the back seat with Olivia," Mike tells us, "and mom had barely even glanced over at me on the way there, but, like...she was staring at me through the back of her head. I'm not shitting you, that was seriously what it felt like. She had her back to me but still, somehow, she was utterly focused on me and I absolutely knew it. It couldn't have been plainer if she'd have turned around and straight-up announced she was gonna fuck me that afternoon."

"What do you --" the interviewer begins.

"I don't know!" Mike cuts her off with a helpless laugh. "I can't explain it, but there was this...connection, this energy just bouncing back and forth between me and her. I can't believe Olivia or dad didn't pick up on it."

"I knew Mike was staring at the back of my head," Emily supplies as we see her again. "I could feel his eyes on me. It simply made me more excited."

Mike reappears to tell us, "We had a bunch of stuff we had to carry, food and stuff, so we were all grabbing what we could. We were all bunched up there at the door, and mom leans over and backs her ass right into me. Like, right into my crotch. I couldn't step back because dad and Olivia were right behind me. And then she starts moving stuff around, making stacks of stuff, all that, and that made her butt wiggle. So, like, yeah, she's just grinding into me. Boing. Fucking hardon right then and there."

Emily once more, a huge and lascivious grin on her face. "Mmmm, I felt Mike go hard against me -- hard as steel. I wiggled a few times, then turned and handed him a large crock pot. He looked...aroused. Very aroused, And aghast. It was delightful!"

Mike reappears, laughing. "She just gives me this sweet smile and says, 'Here honey, carry this!' I've got a boner running down my damned leg and my dad and sister right there and there wasn't a damned thing I could say or do but take those fucking sloppy joes."

Emily looks mischievous and pleased with herself. "I loved making him uncomfortable that way! There were people about -- not only Bob and Olivia, but people I worked with and their families as well. I knew that no one would think I would deliberately press against my own son that way -- no one except Mike, of course, who would know better!"

"At least I could hold the crock pot in front of my dick," Mike grumps as we see him again briefly.

Emily again, saying with a certain smugness, "I made certain I sat in the same seat as Mike on the bus, of course. He would have selected another seat, but I loudly called on him to sit next to me. That left him no choice in the matter!"

Mike once more. "Oh yeah, I would totally have sat, like, on the opposite end of the bus, or even, like, taken the next one! Because once I sat down next to her, you know, the seats were kind of small and she pressed herself up against me, kind of wiggled up right against me, pressing her boob to my arm. I could feel her nipple right against my skin. And as soon as everyone was settled in and she saw there wasn't anybody across the aisle from us, her hand went right to my lap."

Emily giggles. "I almost felt bad for him. I knew he was thinking the same thoughts and feeling the same urges as I was, but he was actually doing a much better job of fighting them. He was trying so hard! But when I put my hand between his legs and felt his cock twitch, I knew I had him. He could try to resist, but he would come to me. Neither of us could fight it that day."

As Mike reappears on the screen, the interviewer asks, "Did you know during that bus ride that you were going to end up having sex with her during the party?"

Mike looks thoughtful. "I don't know. Does the fly know he's going to be eaten the moment he steps on the web, or does he think he can get away until the fangs sink in?"

"That sounds dire," the interviewer observes.

Mike winces visibly and looks guilty. "Yeah, and completely unfair. When she started fondling me through my shorts on the bus, I was caught. That didn't mean I was going to stop struggling, but I already knew how it was going to go. But that's not on her, it's on me. If I hadn't wanted it to go down that way, I could have shut her down, but I wanted it as much as she did. She was just willing to admit it where I wasn't. Yet."

"I traced his length with my hand, up and down, again and again," Emily tells us. There is a growing eagerness in her voice and a growing flush on her cheeks, and the viewer might note a certain catlike quality, a rather unsettling playfulness. "Ohh, he was so hard, and knowing that my husband was three seats away and my daughter was three seats in another direction only made it more thrilling. I had made certain that no one was in a position to see before I began, of course, but simply knowing that I was touching my son in that way, in that place..." She licks her lips. "Thrilling. Delightful. And when he twitched under my fingers and made no move to stop me, I knew he was mine. I knew I could have left him alone after that, or even tried to avoid him, and he would have found me before the end of the day and had me."

"Did you leave him alone after that?"

Her smile becomes positively wicked. "Almost. I gave him one last long, lingering squeeze and whispered into his ear. And then I let him go and leaned back."

"What did she say?" the interviewer asks as we see Mike again.

He smiles, as though perhaps against his will, and says, "She whispered, 'I want this inside me today.' That was it. And I just sat there in a kind of hormone haze, trying to fight what was gonna happen."

At this point we see a series of videos of varying quality shot on the July 4th in question: shaky phone-cam footage shows several adults playing Frisbee on the sunlit grass, seven children under 10 in a watermelon-eating contest, a vast spread of food on long tables in the shade; steadier footage shows a male waterskier being towed behind the boat, then that skier and a woman being pulled in tandem the opposite direction, and finally a pyramid as a another young woman (Olivia Larsen, in fact) stands briefly atop their shoulders before tumbling unceremoniously into the water; phone-cam footage again of dogs chasing sticks and Frisbees into the lake, several people festooning each other's faces with Jell-O salad and whipped cream. It looks as though the weather is beautiful and everyone is happy. The adults, even the older ones, mostly look very fit, as one would expect of a group consisting largely of dancers, and the children are bright-eyed and active.

"It was a great party," we hear Bob say in voice-over. "I loved the get-togethers at her department head's place. It was always a great time."

"Waterskiing!" Olivia laughs as we see her again. "Speedboats! Jetskis! Swimming! I could flirt with a bunch of hot guys I only saw a few times a year! As soon as the bus pulled in, I was off and running and I didn't even look back until it was time to leave."

"I had to get off the bus last," Mike chuckles as he reappears, "because I had to adjust myself so I wasn't tenting like a perv. So I waited until everybody else was up and in the aisle, and then I stood up. Mom brushed past me, pushing her ass right up against my crotch, and then, like, sashayed down the aisle. She knew I was looking at her booty and she shook it for me. Um...mom has an amazing ass."

Emily again. "As soon as I stepped off the bus, I was caught up in the normal whirl. Coworkers and spouses and their children, all swirling together, and there were certain niceties that had to be observed. I had to be seen, and seen to interact, because simply disappearing to a closet with Mike as soon as we climbed off the bus would have drawn attention."

"I had some friends in that group," Mike says. "I'd grown up with those guys in a way, there were a few around my age. So I caught up with them, got some food, went swimming, played some volleyball, touch football, Frisbee, flirted with some girls. I tried to stop thinking about mom and what she wanted to do -- what I wanted to do. What I wanted to do to her. It, ah, it didn't work."

We see Emily again, smiling proudly. "Mike stripped off his shirt very quickly, as most of the other teenage boys did. He was very active, playing games and swimming or diving off the dock, and he was very much the center of interest for women there. I watched him, but I also watched the women there as they watched him, and there was definitely appreciation in their eyes. Many of them told me what a handsome young man Mike had become, and I simply smiled and thanked them. None of them could have known that he was going to be taking me off to a quiet spot and...being passionate with me that very day!"

Mike again. "No matter how hard I tried to keep from doin' it, I kept looking at mom. And she wasn't even doin' anything, just hanging out, talking with her friends and coworkers, getting the meal ready with the others. But every time I looked at her I felt her hand on me again. I could feel her lips on me..both sets. I knew how she'd moan when I put my lips on her. I knew how she'd taste. I knew how she'd kiss me. Just that, man -- I knew how she kissed when she was horny and wanted to get fucked. I shouldn't have known that. I shouldn't have wanted that. But I wanted it."

Emily again, looking merry. "Three or four girls about his age tried to attract his attention. I think he even tried to divert himself with them, but he couldn't sustain that. Every time he began flirting with some empty-headed girl, he'd look over at me and give me the hungriest look. It was marvelous!"

"We eye-fucked," Mike admits. "No doubt about it, man, we eye-fucked hard, like a dozen times. It was weird, because I kept trying to think of Hannah. I'd spent the day before fucking Hannah up, down, and sideways, but during the moments when mom and I were looking at each other, I couldn't even remember what Hannah sounded like when she came. But I could remember every little thing about mom, so vivid and real it was like I was experiencing it right then. How could any other girl compete with that?"

"It came time to eat," Bob recalls as he reappears. "The host always provided the main courses -- in this case barbecued spare ribs and chicken. Oh, and some sort of vegetarian thing for weirdos. Everybody else brought sides or desserts or whatever, so there was this ridiculous profusion of food, more than two groups that size could have eaten in a day. I was engaged in a running discussion about social policy with several of the people there and I was pretty absorbed in my own thing, but I did notice that Emily kept staring at Mike. I didn't know why, but she was glaring. I thought he'd pissed her off again. And he was glaring back, so I was thinking, crap, here we go again, more of this shit."

Olivia again. "I wasn't paying that much attention to anyone but my friends and a few cute guys, but I was sitting like two spots down from Mike, which was close enough to pick up on a weird vibe from him, this kind of...well, he kept staring at mom, and she kept staring at him, and it didn't really look to me like they were mad at each other. I think at that point I'd have picked up on the vibe if it had been, like, any other two people in the world, because it was pretty thick. But I still wasn't really on that page yet."

"I was so hot during that meal!" Emily tells us. "I could feel Mike's eyes undressing me and I knew he was going to drag me off to someplace quiet as soon as he had the chance. I was so ready for him! My nipples were as hard as bullets and very obvious, to the point that I needed to sit hunched to avoid drawing attention to them. I was so wet I could feel my panties sticking to my crotch, and every time I shifted on my chair I felt surges and trills shiver up my body from the little bit of friction it placed on my...feminine parts. I shouldn't be surprised if everyone around me knew I was excited, but no one let on if they noticed anything."

"I don't know if I tasted a bite of what I ate," Mike chuckled as he reappears. "I even went back for seconds and cleaned the plate then too, but all I could think about was sinking into mom. By then, like, I'd given up fighting it. I was gonna do it. She knew I was gonna do it. Every time we locked eyes we could see it, see what the other wanted. I don't know how I kept up with the conversation around me because I was focused, like totally, completely focused. I could see her nipples poking holes in her shirt from where I was sitting. She kept rubbing her pussy on her chair. She was flushed. I swear to God I could smell her -- I mean the people right next to her couldn't smell her because there were like a thousand food smells and there was a lake breeze moving the air around, but I remembered so completely how she smelled that my mind just filled it in. I think that got me hotter than anything."

"The meal at such an event doesn't precisely end so much as peter out into snacking as the day wears on," Emily informs us. "I was involved in the cleanup and the chit-chat around those activities, but of course I kept my eye on Mike. When he made eye contact with me and the unostentatiously slipped away toward the house, I knew he was going to wait for me. I watched him disappear around the side of the house, waited several minutes, and then quietly followed him, drawing as little attention as I could."

"Nobody was supposed to go into the house during the parties when it was nice outside," Mike informs us in voice-over as we see photos of the back of the house, then the side, and then a close-up of a door on the side of the house, near the parking area. "But, like, I'd grown up going to that house, and kids explore, right? All the kids knew that they kept the one side door open for deliveries and caterers and shit, so by the time I was nine I'd explored every inch of that place. There was a cupola at the top of the house, like three stories up from the door, that was their home office. I knew nobody would be up there. I parked myself around the side, and as soon as mom came around I grabbed her wrist, opened that door, and shut it behind us."

Emily again, grinning like the cat that ate the canary. "I needed Mike so badly that it had been difficult to keep from sprinting around the side of the house when I saw him go. I forced myself to stroll, as though I were simply looking for a quiet place. When I rounded the corner of the house I barely even saw Mike before he had me by the hand, pulling me into the house. He was very forceful!"

"What happened then?" the interviewer asks.

Emily's grin widens. "We couldn't do very much there because it was just inside the door, around the corner from the room where the caterers were working. We could hear them chatting and bustling about. But Mike did take the time to press me against the wall, squeeze my left breast through my shirt, and kiss me quite ferociously. It took my breath away! A few moments later he was leading me up the stairs, both of us sneaking like thieves, both of us with enormous, illicit smiles on our faces. By that point, though, I was so hungry for him that I'd have let him take me in the living room had he wanted to do that."

"We got up to the second floor and there were some little kids sneaking around in one of the bedrooms, just poking their noses where they shouldn't have been like I did when I was their age," Mike laughs "They'd left the door open so we could hear them shushing each other. We just went right up to the cupola and locked the door behind us."

"I felt so naughty!" Emily confides with a giggle as she reappears. "It wasn't merely that I was sneaking away from a party to have sex with my own son, but I was going into forbidden parts of my boss' house! We were going to have sex in their office, in a cupola with glass windows all around that had an incredible view of the very party we'd sneaked away from! That added a very...naughty schoolchild aspect to it, I think, a frisson of danger, and a different sort of transgression than the one we were already going to commit. I was giddy!"

"I closed the door and locked it!" Mike tells us with a smile. "I knew those kids were poking around, so I didn't want them coming in on us. But once that door was locked I forgot about everyone outside that room. It was me and mom and it was gonna happen. I had her pressed up against the door and her shirt pushed up over her tits before either of us had a chance to take a breath."

Emily again, the flush creeping up her cheeks, her eyes bright. "I managed to say the word 'Front' before he cut me off with a kiss -- telling him that the clasp was in front, not in back. The last time he'd gotten frustrated with my bra and ripped it off of me, and while that was magnificent and thrilling and perfect, I could hardly disappear from the party and then reappear without a bra! I tugged his shirt up as he opened my bra, and once I pulled his shirt off he bent and took my breast into his mouth."

Mike once more. "I love mom's boobs. I love 'em. She hates 'em 'cause they're small, but I can just about suck the whole thing into my mouth, not just the nipple, and man did she get worked up when I did that. She grabbed my head and arched her back up into me and sort of...what's the word...keened? Like this high, trembling moan that went on and on as I sucked her nipple, then went to the other boob and did the same to that one, then back and forth, back and forth. God she has amazing tits. I coulda sucked on those things all day long!"

Emily reappears and nods vigorously. "Mike's mouth is the most amazing thing in the entire world, except perhaps for his hands and his cock and...well, he's an amazing young man! He took my breast between his lips with a fierce suction and held it there, drawing all the blood to the nipple and making it so hard and so sensitive even that it was thrilling even before he put his tongue on it. But then he did put his tongue on it, just the very tip at first, flicking quickly back and forth over the tip, and then gliding the flat of his tongue over it so that every nerve in my nipple and areola sang at once. I almost wept with relief."

We see Mike again. "Mom was fucking my mouth with her nipple, moaning like a whore, and she starts with the swearing like she does when she's having sex. 'Fucking suck my tits, bite 'em, fuck yes you get me so hot baby,' all that kind of thing. It's always gotten me hot as hell when she talks that way, you know? I mean, if she always swore then it would be no big deal, right? But she's always such a language prude, so when she cuts loose it like it's even more perverted."

"What was she doing?" asks the interviewer.

"She ran her fingers through my hair, ran her nails up and down my back, but that didn't last long. Pretty soon she was opening my shorts and pushing them down. I kicked them off and her hand was all over my dick. She kind of whimpered when she wrapped her fingers around it, you know, like that was the thing she wanted more than anything else in the whole world, touching my cock made her so happy she couldn't even put it into words. Like I was a present she was opening on Christmas Day."

"How did that make you feel?"

"How do you think it made me feel?" Mike laughs. "My own mom loves my cock so much she can't even tell me. My own mom! Who never does anything wrong, doesn't speed, doesn't cheat on her taxes, nothin'. But she's willing to cheat on her husband -- my dad -- break the law, and like, violate one of society's biggest taboos to get her hands on my cock. It made me feel like the biggest badass in the fuckin' world."

"Mmmmmmm," Emily purrs, glassy-eyed, as she reappears. "Feeling that cock, that magnificent cock, throbbing like velveted steel, throbbing for me, for his own mother! So long, so thick, the vein on the bottom pulsating against my palm so that I could feel his heart hammering for me! I closed my eyes and concentrated on my cunt and the way it would feel when my son's cock was stretching it wide open and hammering me deep and hard, the way it would feel when he simply took control of me and began to use my body for his pleasure. I was beyond words. What could I have said that could have conveyed any of that?"

"But you were swearing," the interviewer points out, sounding amused.

"Fuck yes I was swearing," Emily giggles. "But that still wasn't expressing a thousandth of what my son's cock in my hand made me feel! So I did the only thing I could do in that situation: I sank to my knees and used my mouth to worship him instead."

Mike gives a delighted little moan as we cut back to him. "That was the first thing we did," Mike tells us, "back when this all began. I mean we kissed and stripped each other, yeah, but the first thing we did that we could get arrested for was when mom sucked my cock, and I don't think I'd stopped thinking about it for half an hour at a time since then. And here she was, sliding her hands down my chest, over my stomach, and around to my ass as she licks and kisses straight down the middle of my body and crouches in front of me. She looks up at me with those gorgeous fucking eyes, just locks eyes with me, and sticks out her tongue. And it was like time just stopped, like my heart hung up between beats, you know? She sticks her tongue out like a cat and just runs it right up my cock, from the head all the way to the root. And her fucking tongue, man. Her fucking tongue."

"I watched his face as I took him into my mouth," Emily tells us happily. "Oral sex is an amazing thing because at that moment you do nothing but give pleasure, and you can watch that pleasure on the face of the one you love. When I took him to the root and swirled my tongue on his balls, he opened his eyes wide and gasped. When I sucked him into the back of my throat, suckled him, and hummed so that every part of my mouth vibrated against him, he squinted his eyes and moaned. When I made the very tip of my tongue as firm as I could make it and danced it under and along the big, mushroom head of his shaft, he closed his eyes tight and inhaled sharply. It was as though his body was an instrument and I was playing it with notes of sensual gratification. I saw and heard the effect of everything I did, no matter how small, and bringing such joy to the man I loved more than any other, the man who could play me the same way, was beyond thrilling. It was even beyond sensual. It was...it felt...right. Yes, right. Proper. I felt like I was supposed to be before him, his cock in my mouth, lavishing upon him everything I could to make him happy."

"You felt it was proper to be sucking your son's cock in your boss' office during a work party with your husband and daughter, your coworkers and friends, right outside?" the interviewer asks with mingled incredulity and awe.

"Yes," Emily replies with a smile and a shrug. "I was where I was supposed to be. I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. I was a fool for having felt guilt or shame or reluctance. I was made to please the man I had made, and I had made him to please me."

"You make it sound like a religious experience."

Emily laughs merrily. "I do go on! But it felt that way to me at the time, it felt as though it were the most proper and beautiful thing I could possibly be doing. That sort of soul-deep connection isn't something I had ever felt with Bob, even though I did, and do, love him very dearly. He had simply never touched that spark in me. It took my own son to strike that spark, to kindle that flame, to make me blaze for him the way I did. At that moment I realized I could love him with every fiber of my being, and I did. I did."

Mike reappears. "She was looking at me in a way she'd never looked at me before. Like...it's hard to describe. I don't know how to describe it. Her eyes were just shining, big and bright, and she looked so happy. I'd never seen her look that happy or that satisfied. She looked like there was nothing in the whole world she'd rather be doing than sucking me -- not getting sucked by me, not getting fucked by me, not...I dunno, winning the lottery or something. I'd never seen a chick look so happy to be sucking a cock, and to have it be my mom on my cock was incredible."

Emily once more. "I didn't hurry. We had reason to hurry, as the threat of discovery was hanging over us and it would have been catastrophic had it happened, but I refused. I wanted to savor this experience. I wanted to become as intimate with every vein and whorl of skin on his cock as I was with my own face in the mirror."

"It was a long, slow, absolutely amazing blowjob," Mike smiles. "I never even knew a blowjob could be like that. Other girls give blowjobs as a way to get you hard, or a way to get you off, or a way to say thank you or whatever, but mom's blowjob in the office was like she was givin' it to make me feel like the most important man in the world."

"Did it work?" the interviewer asks.

"Fuckin' A right it did."

"I think I did it for about fifteen minutes, if not more," Emily says as we see her again. "It was enough time that I got tired of squatting long before the end and knelt instead, and long enough that my jaw got tired and began to hurt. I didn't stop, though, until I saw and heard and felt in his body that he was very close to coming. I wanted to taste his cum, but I needed to have it in my womb."

"Did you want to get pregnant?" the interviewer asks.

Emily does not appear shocked by the question. "No. I hadn't stopped to think that I was, perhaps, at my most fertile, although I should have realized that the hunger I was feeling for Mike's seed was more intense than it normally would have been. I'd been rattled since our first time together and wasn't thinking clearly. All I could think about was how glorious it would be to take his cum, to have it inside me, to feel it seeping out through the rest of the day, to know it was there as I mingled and acted normally in the party or as I rode home with my family. My desire for it left no room for reason!"

"Do you think subconsciously you wanted --"

"Yes," Emily nods vigorously, interrupting the interviewer. "I think on a subconscious level I wanted Mike to give me a child. To use that tiresome phrase, my biological clock was ticking. I was absolutely at my peak sexuality. My body craved being pregnant, craved becoming pregnant by the strongest, most dominant man I knew -- the man I was submitting to at that moment. Whether I knew it or not, my body wanted it."

Mike once more. "Man, I didn't think about the possibility of getting my mom pregnant at all. It was, like, too big an idea, too much for me to deal with. I don't even know if I really understood that I could. Not like I didn't know where babies came from, I wasn't that stupid. It was just...I was thinking of mom sexually a lot, but I wasn't thinking of babies with her. Yet."

"If you had, would you have continued?" the interviewer asks.

"Christ yes!" Mike laughs, a wolfish gleam in his eye. "Nothing was gonna stop that. I just woulda pulled out!"

"I was still wearing my shorts," we learn from Eden as we see her again, "and I had soaked them through -- luckily I had worn something dark! Fortunately Mike took care of that quickly as I let his cock go and stood up. His hands were everywhere at once! I don't even recall him touching my shorts, but suddenly I was naked and his hands were on my butt, pulling me so him. I felt him hard and wet against my tummy. He crushed me in a kiss, simply took control of my body with his mouth. No man has ever kissed me that way except my own son."

Mike once again. "I wanted to return what she did to me. I love going down on girls, and mom tastes like heaven. I'd been kind of leaning my ass up against the desk, so I just turned and pushed all the papers and shit onto the floor. I didn't really think about it, I just did it. It didn't occur to me until later that I was kinda trashing the office of our hosts, or, like, it would make it really obvious that somebody was in here!," he laughs. "I just wanted a taste and that was the best way to get it. I turned back to mom, grabbed her by the ass, lifted her up, swung back around and dropped her right on the desk. I spread her legs and dived right in."

We see Emily briefly, her eyes closed and a huge and delighted smile on her face as she says, "Mike's tongue is astounding!"

Back to Mike. "As I put my lips on her and she moaned loud and said, 'Fuck,' I noticed the windows were open. Every wall except the one with the door in it had a window, and all of them were open, and that meant we could hear the party down below. I could hear talking, laughing, kids screaming, motorboats out on the lake, even birds in the trees. And that was no big deal, except, if we could hear them, then they could hear us if we started making too much noise. And mom gets loud. I love that she gets loud -- I love making her get loud! But this was not a good time."

"What did you do?" the interviewer asks.

Mike grins devilishly. "Her panties were right there next to me on the floor. They were sexy little things, lacy little asshugger cheeksters, and they were soaked, just drenched in her juice. I put them up against her lips and told her to keep them in her mouth until I told her to take them out."

Emily is obviously extremely aroused at this memory. "Oh my! Oh, when he told me to keep my panties in my mouth, he had a tone of absolute command in his voice. I was helpless before that. I opened my mouth obediently and he put them in. I could taste myself perfectly, I had so saturated the cloth. When he said to keep them there until he told me to remove them, I snapped my jaw shut on them. I was so aroused I would have walked back into the party with them dangling between my teeth if he had ordered me to!"

Mike again. "I dived into her pussy like I hadn't eaten for a month. Face pressed right against her, cheeks pushing her open. I shoved my tongue up in there as far as I could get it and chased every drop she made. She was the best thing I tasted that day, man, no fucking lie!"

We see Emily again, her cheeks beet red, her eyes wide and shining, as she licks her lips. "The magnificent thing -- besides Mike's mouth! -- was that I could taste myself on my panties as clearly and vividly as he could with his mouth on me. It was an incredible erotic charge to suck the cloth and know that I was tasting the same thing as he was at that moment as he gave me such pleasure! Almost as soon as I realized that, I was on the edge of orgasm, and, unlike the first time he'd done that to me, he wasn't holding back and trying to hold off my orgasm. He was devouring me, and I simply slid over into a climax almost immediately."

"Oh yeah, I was glad for those panties being there!" Mike tells us with a laugh. "She was moaning, screaming, cussing -- 'Uggin ick ah ussy roo muherugger!' If I hadn't shut her up the cops woulda had us in cuffs in five minutes. But this way I could grind my face up into her, and when she started to come I just kept going."

"I had looked at my son's face when I was sucking him," Emily tells us as we see her again, "and now I was looking at his face as he did the same to me. He was watching me as I'd watched him, but more forcefully. He told me with just his eyes that he controlled me, he dominated me, that he owned me. Seeing that look on his face made me scream."

"In a good way or a bad way?" asks the interviewer.

Emily grins wickedly. "In a magnificent way! It was like a bolt of pure sex began at the tip of each finger and each toe and every hair on my head and all of them came crashing together in my clit. I howled like a bitch in heat and came so hard I thought it would take the polish off my fingernails!"

"Oh man!" Mike informs us as he reappears. "That orgasm! Man! She put both feet on my shoulders and slammed her pussy right up into my face like she was tryin' to get my whole head inside. And her body hummed, thrummed, like a plucked guitar string that just kept on vibrating. I was like, 'Let's see how long this goes' and kept sucking. It was, like, minutes, like ten minutes of one orgasm, her whole body coiled and singing and juice pouring out of her faster than I could suck it up. Screamin' into her panties the whole time, the whole time. And then all at once her feet fly off my shoulders and she just dropped back onto the desk and her pussy fell away from my mouth. Even then, though, she was still vibrating."

"Ohhhh my Goooooddd!" Emily gasps, looking breathless and wild-eyed, her untameable hair standing out in stray locks and making her look a little unhinged. "I didn't stop coming! Even after his mouth was off of me, I just kept coming! It was like throwing a rock into a still pool and seeing the ripples go out one after another and reflect from the edge and come back upon themselves, mixing and mingling. There were waves of pleasure trembling through my body, all the way out to the ends of my limbs and then coming back to meet fresh waves. It was utterly overwhelming."

Mike again. "She was laying there spread on the desk, splayed out, and I was hard as a rock. I needed to get off, and she wasn't up to taking orders at the moment, so I grabbed her and flipped her over onto her stomach, grabbed her by the hair, and went in."

Emily reappears, looking even less hinged than before as her arousal rises. "There is nothing that excites me more than being flipped and tossed about by a strong, dominating man, a man who can control me physically. Mike didn't ask, he didn't consult me about the position I wanted to be in, and he didn't even wait for me to calm down so I could do as he told me. He simply turned me over and began to fuck me from behind! And with a handful of my hair as a bridle! I was in heaven!"

Mike again, smiling hugely. "I don't think she stopped coming from before. She just slid right into another orgasm. Her whole body was shaking, like I watched the skin on her arms where she was bracing herself and it looked like it was jumping. I think every muscle she had was twitching -- and man, her insides were twitching on my cock, that was for sure! It felt like a dozen fingers were massaging me on every stroke. I was like, yeah, not gonna last long in this piece of paradise!"

"Mike very quickly started fucking me hard and fast, which was exactly what I needed at that moment," Emily tells us. "I love long, slow screws when the mood is right, but there, then, at that moment, I needed to be fucked like a horny little slut. Mike sensed that and treated me like a whore, and I was helpless. I had panties in my mouth and I still screamed myself hoarse."

Mike reappears. "You gotta visualize the whole scene. Outside there were like 200 people who knew us. I could hear them talking and laughing, they were that close. And I was fucking my mom's brains out right there, where we shouldn't have been at all. Mom was coming and coming and coming, just freaking the fuck out on my dick, and I was fighting to keep from coming because I didn't want it to end so soon -- well, I didn't want it to end ever. I mean, my dad was out there and I was fucking his wife and giving her something I knew he couldn't and he had no idea. It was a gigantic rush."

The interviewer says, "You were getting off on cuckolding your father?"

Mike shrugs with a mixture of shame and arousal on his face. "Yeah. Don't get me wrong, I loved my dad. I love him to this day. He's a great guy, and I know he loved my mom. But if he was giving her what she needed, she wouldn't be dangling off my cock then. He wasn't doing it because he couldn't do it. I could and he couldn't. I mean, yeah there were things I could do better than him, I knew that, but when one of those things involves turning your own mom into your cum slut, it's a special kind of buzz."

Emily appears again, bright red and wide-eyed. "I didn't know anything outside the room existed. I was lost to the world. I am glad I was gagged, however, because I was howling to wake the dead! Mike's pace was increasing, his breath was ragged, I knew he was close to coming and I wanted it so much! I wanted to feel his cum inside me, to feel it leaking from me as the day went on, to know that it was Mike's cum, my son's cum, my lover's cum that was keeping the crotch of my panties damp. There was nothing else but that need."

"I was gonna bust," Mike reports. "I couldn't hold out and I wanted to feel her body against me when I came, so I pulled her body up by her hair so she was about as upright as she could be with my dick in her and swung my free hand around so my fingers were on her clit -- on the hood, I mean, sort of pressing and giving it some pressure as I fucked her. She squealed and her eyes got huge and then just slammed shut, and her pussy clamped hard on my cock and didn't let it go. I came so hard that I'd have dropped if she wasn't there to hold onto."

We see Emily once more, looking like she might faint from the degree of flushing her face shows. "I almost passed out again when his fingers found my clit and when he started to twitch and jerk inside me so I knew he was coming. If he hadn't been holding me up I would have fallen like a marionette with sliced strings. I could do nothing but feel my strong, wonderful son inside me and holding me and orgasm, oh my Lord, orgasm!"

Mike sports a rather smug smile. "Oh yeah. Hell yeah. I felt good. I mean, after it was done and we stood there for a bit, I pulled her down onto the desk with me and just laid there with her in my arms. She did something funny, though -- as soon as I pulled out of her and told her she could take the panties out of her mouth, she grabbed them and put them back on. She told me she wanted to keep my cum inside her, which was fucking hot. I mean, she didn't want to make any more of a mess than we already had, but still, sexy, right?"

Emily returns, looking a bit shiny with a dappling of perspiration, still red in the face, hair much askew. "Curled there in Mike's arms, when the blood stopped pounding in my ears, I began to hear the sounds of activity and joy outside and I knew that Bob was one of those voices. Bob, who loved me and whom I loved, but who could never satisfy me. And there I was, in the arms of Mike. It all felt so very right."

"You sound like this was more than just sex," the interviewer points out. "What were you feeling?"

"I had been perfectly dominated and perfectly fucked," Emily replies, obviously weighing her words very carefully but still aroused enough to use the vulgarity. "I already loved Mike more than any other man in the world, but now that he had repeatedly shown me that he could give me exactly what I'd always needed and fulfill me in ways I didn't know I could be fulfilled, it was inevitable that I would...become infatuated."

"You were falling for your son?"

Emily nods. "I suppose I was. We seemed so right together. I keep using the word 'right,' but it seemed to apply in so many different ways."

"Explain?"

Emily shifts a bit and smiles. "It felt proper that we were together. It felt as though I were being completed for the first time in my life. But more than that, I felt as though what we were doing was...just, I suppose, as though we had both earned this joy and rapturous release by the simple fact of loving each other and surviving what we had survived together. It felt as though we were entitled to this, entitled to the sex and the love and the support and the sheer intimacy of it all. And, I must add, it felt as though we were hurting no one -- no one knew except the two of us, so who could be harmed? It felt very right in that regard as well."

"You really felt this wasn't hurting your family?"

"Neither Bob nor Olivia had any way of knowing. Mike and I were closer together than ever before, and speaking for myself, I was happier than I had been in a very, very long time."

"Happy wife, happy life?"

Emily looks a bit guilty. "I've never liked that phrase, but I suppose it applied at that moment."

"And this is what you really believed?"

Emily looks guiltier. "Yes. At that moment."

We see Mike again, looking a bit pensive. "Like it did, the realization came in when we were done. The, you know, the recognition that I'd just fucked my mom and that it had been amazing. This time with the recognition that I did it like, what, 60 feet away from my dad. The recognition of it being fucked up."

The interviewer asks, "Did you feel as guilty as you had before?"

Mike shakes his head. "Nope. I mean there was some guilt, right? But...maybe I was, like, getting used to it or something. Like, you can't keep feeling that guilty if you keep doin' it, right? Somethin's gotta give. You make room in your head for all of it. People can figure out how to live with just about anything as long as it's what they want to do."

"Did you feel like you were falling in love?"

Mike purses his lips in thought, then says, "I knew there were something there that hadn't been before, like even that morning. You can't keep having mind-blowing sex with someone you love and not start to be in love, you know? At least I can't. And everything just felt so...smooth, so natural between us now. Even with the guilt I felt then, it wasn't like guilt about what we'd done, it was more guilt about how dad would see it, or Olivia, or other people. And some guilt that we'd kinda trashed the office of some very nice people."

"But you said you recognized that it was fucked up."

"Oh yeah," Mike nods. "I recognized it. I just didn't feel guilty about it. I mean, it was what it was, right? Neither of us had exactly tried to seduce the other the first time, we just recognized how good it was an adapted to it. I knew that it would kill my dad if he found out, I knew it would be a terrible thing for the family, I knew that, like, basically everybody in the whole world would be shocked and appalled by it. I recognized that. But the act itself? Nah, I wasn't really all that guilty about that anymore. I liked it too much."

"And did you want to do it again? Eventually, I mean, not right then?"

"Yeah. Of course I did. We'd fought against it twice and lost twice, and all three times we'd had sex it had been the kind of sex that changes your life forever. I was done fighting it. I didn't know how long it was gonna last, but I was done fighting it for however long it lasted."

"Eventually, of course, we had to get cleaned up and go," Emily tells us as she reappears. "When I looked about at the state of the office, I felt awful! I told Mike to go ahead and leave, and I would stay behind and tidy up, and then find a bathroom and make sure I didn't reek of sex when I came back to the party. If he came back several minutes before I did, I thought no one would notice that we'd sneaked off together."

"So, yeah, I got dressed," Mike tells us. "I gave her a long, deep kiss that I didn't rush. I lingered for a few minutes with our tongues just moving together. Then I went out and down the stairs. The kids were gone from the second floor, so I ducked into a bathroom and washed up quick. A couple minutes later I was back at the party -- I even grabbed my swim trunks out of the basket and got changed in one of the portable toilets they had set up and went for a swim. That cleaned me up good."

Emily again. "I put the office back into shape as much as possible. I genuinely did feel badly about using it as we had. I cleaned up the mess on the desk and put everything back as close to the way it was as I could, though I knew it would be obvious that someone had been in there. To be honest, I knew that sneaking into the house for illicit trysts was something of a tradition at these parties, so I knew my boss wouldn't be shocked that the office was used for this purpose. Still, it was only good manners not to leave a mess. Once I'd gotten dressed I sneaked down and used the bathroom to clean up as much as I could, though I knew Mike's seed would be running out of me all afternoon."

"Was that still exciting?" the interviewer asks.

"Oh yes!" Emily laughs. "Very much so! But now I could see the danger of it. The smell of sex is quite distinctive, after all, and it occurred to me that in the cramped confines of the car on the way home it would be difficult to keep it a secret, I had to get as much of the stuff out as possible. Still..."

"Still?"

Emily grins wickedly. "I knew my panties would catch a great deal of it. I knew I would keep smelling it, and every time I did I knew I would be reminded of what we'd done, over and over and over. That was exquisite!"

We see Olivia again, still shocking with her face bandaged. "I'd noticed Mike was gone because half the girls there were horny for him and they kept asking me where he was. And then he comes back and jumps into the lake right away and was in a really good mood, like obviously so. So I started looking around to see if one of the girls was coming back doing the walk of shame...and then maybe five minutes later came mom, a gigantic smile on her face and just glowing, strolling back like she hadn't even been gone. That's when I put it together."

"You figured out that they'd had sex?" the interviewer asks.

Olivia nods. "I did and I didn't. Once I thought of it, all the weirdness they'd been putting out since the trip suddenly wasn't weird at all. Everything made sense, just like that." She snaps her fingers to illustrate that. " Mike and mom were totally doing it."

"And you just accepted that right then and there?"

"No!" Olivia laughs. "Oh Jeez no. It was like, 'Maybe...naaahhhh...but maybe...naaahhh.' I mean, that was a lot to bite off and chew. But the instant the thought entered my mind it just clicked. Part of me knew I was right even though another huge part of me kept trying to tell me I was wrong."

"How did you feel about it?"

Olivia gives a rather helpless shrug. "Shocked. Overwhelmed. Confused. Kind of thinking it was really, utterly, totally fucked, but kind of getting it too."

"Getting it? What do you mean?"

"Look, it's really, really easy to get porn on the internet, and incest porn is really popular. We'd all been exposed to it. One of the questions you asked your friends at sleepovers was 'If you had to have sex with a family member, who would it be?' And then you'd all shriek and laugh at everyone's answers. But the idea was there, the...the concept of it was there. I didn't have any desires myself along those lines, but once I thought of it, once I started kicking it around in my head, I could sort of understand why mom and Mike would."

"You did?" The interviewer sounds surprised.

"Yeah," Olivia shrugs. "I mean, both of them were at their sexual peaks. Teenage boys will fuck anything that doesn't move fast enough to get away, and Mike had earned himself a reputation as a playa. It was totally obvious that mom was getting nothing from dad. Living together is a pressure cooker. You put ingredients in it and turn up the heat and something's gonna happen, maybe good, usually bad. Most families, it's fights and acting out and not getting along. Some families, it's getting along too well."

"So you were fine with it?"

"Fuck no!" Olivia laughs. "I thought it was totally fucked up. I just understood that it might be happening and why. But I wasn't sure. I had to be sure before I...well, I didn't have a plan or anything. But that's something that, once you think it, you really can't just let it sit. You need to find out one way or the other, for absolute sure."

We see Bob once more. "I'd noticed Emily had vanished for a while, but not Mike. I assumed she'd gotten a little sick to her stomach and spent some time in a port-o-john. When she came back and looked happy, I just figured that everything was OK. And no, of course I didn't make the connection then. Olivia told me later that she made the deduction that day, but I certainly didn't. I was just glad to see my wife having a good time."

Now we see a professional-looking film clip of the entire group of about 175 people -- faculty and their families, coming together and smiling for what's obviously a posed shot in the late afternoon or early evening. It looks like a wonderful time was had by all. People are grouped by family, and we freeze-frame on Mike and Emily standing together, both beaming. The freeze-frame zooms in further, on Emily's waist -- which has Mike's arm around it possessively, his hand resting on her upper hip.

The screen goes dark. Credits roll.

Folie a Deux, Episode 04
Mike and Emily just can't control themselves.  
Folie à Deux

Episode 4: Mania

By Senor Smut

In voiceover against a dark screen, we hear the voice of a young man sounding strong, confident, and cheerful. "It was like we'd been swimming against a strong current. No matter how hard we swam, we couldn't do more than keep ourselves in place. But then it was like we turned around and put the current at our back. We went from zero to a hundred in one afternoon."

We now see the speaker, a handsome man in his early 20s with dark hair and almost classic good looks, with high cheekbones, a sculpted jaw and dimpled chin, and shockingly pale blue eyes.

"After the party, we couldn't deny what we wanted anymore," he goes on. "It was too much. Too much amazing sex, too much emotion, too much excitement, too much love. We started falling for each other hard and neither one of us wanted to put on the brakes."

His name is given in subtitle as Mike Larsen.

We now see a title card in white letters against a black background:

Folie à Deux

Episode 4: Mania

After a few moments, the title card is replaced by one reading:

July 4

We now see a beautiful woman in her early 40s. Although her face bears definite resemblance to Mike's in structure, there are marked differences as well. Her eyes are very dark and her mouth is sensuously wide and generous. Most dramatic, of course, is the ungovernable mass of blonde locks that tumbles to just past her shoulders. She wears a pale green satin blouse and a different shade of lipstick than the had in the previous episode, showing this to likely be a different day than before. She smiles dazzlingly.

A subtitle informs us she is Emily Larsen.

"Walking back into that party with my son's semen leaking slowly from my body was so exciting it made me dizzy," she tells us. "I couldn't have gotten the smile off of my face if I had tried. I felt young and giddy and invincible."

"What was it like to come face-to-face with your husband after having sex with Mike a few minutes before?" asks an off-screen man with a slight English accent - the interviewer from the second episode is back.

Emily opens her mouth, pauses a moment, and then says, "I know I ought to tell you I felt dreadful having cuckolded my husband with our own son. That would, of course, be the proper thing say. But in truth, I didn't feel the slightest bit bad. I was euphoric. I looked into Bob's face, gave him a bright smile, and felt my heart hammering with joy. I couldn't possibly have been any happier."

"No guilt at all?"

"None. Does that sound awful? It simply didn't seem to me to have anything whatever to do with Bob. To be perfectly blunt, through disuse my husband had forfeited all claim to my body. Mike had planted his flag when he planted himself inside me. I was married to Bob and I loved him dearly, but it had been a platonic marriage for a very long time. I was my son's woman now."

Emily is replaced by Mike, and for the rest of the video we see only one person on screen at any time.

"I reeked of sex, just stunk of it," Mike chuckles, "so I sprinted right to the lake and just dove right in, splashing around and yelling and making sure everybody knew I was there. And I was having an absolute blast. I felt like I was on top of the world, you know?"

"And did you feel guilt about betraying your father?" the interviewer asks.

Mike shakes his head. "'Betraying?' I didn't think of it like that anymore. I mean I had until then, but now? Now it was just me and mom, that was all. Me and mom, right? Just that filled me up. I didn't have room for anything else then. When I was out in the lake with the girls there, all I was thinking about was what we'd just done together and what I was going to do to her when I got the chance again. Guilt wasn't on my radar."

Emily again. "Perhaps I was simply alert to it, but the smell of sex on my body seemed unmistakable, so, a few minutes after I returned to the party, I contrived to spill a rather pungent chili down my front. It was less embarrassing to sport a stain than to have people wonder whom I had been mating with. It did have the side effect of ruining my daughter's shirt, however."

Now we see a young woman who looks like an early-20s version of Emily herself, except that her hair is dyed a shockingly bright red, her nose is bandaged, and both her eyes are blackened; a careful observer might note that her black eyes look a little better than they did in the previous episode.

Her subtitle reveals her to be named Olivia Larsen.

"I'd made that leap when I saw mom, that leap that made me think she and Mike were having sex," she tells the camera, her tone slightly nasal from her broken nose but still discernibly amused. "It freaked me out and was kinda gross, but what made me mad was that she stained the shirt I'd lent her. I mean, all her shirts were these hideous baggy monstrosities and she'd wanted to look sexier, so I let her use the shirt, and that's how she treated it? I liked that shirt!"

"As the party concluded," the interviewer asks, "how were you dealing with the conclusion that your mother and brother were having sex?"

"Well at this point it wasn't a conclusion, it was a conjecture," she corrects him. "But it made sense of a lot of things that didn't make sense any other way. Their big blowup on the trip, their tension since, the walk of shame when mom came back to the party - it all fit, and I could understand how it happened because mom and dad weren't really...well, there wasn't a lot of emotional heat there, it was like they were together by inertia more than anything else. I knew in my bones I was on the right track, but it was a lot to accept. So no, it wasn't a conclusion."

"Then how were you dealing with your conjecture?" The interviewer sounds mildly irked at being corrected.

"Like a ping-pong ball!" Olivia laughs. "One side was denial and the other was the proverbial light bulb over my head and I was getting knocked back and forth! But besides complete denial, the main thought was what was gonna happen when dad found out. Because it's not like you can live in a house together every day and keep something like that secret. Dad's a smart guy, I knew he'd tumble to it sooner or later, probably sooner. And he's, like, mild-mannered and nice and everything, but discovering that was definitely gonna blow some gaskets."

Olivia is replaced by a handsome man in his mid-40s, a touch of gray in his dark hair. His eyes are the same whitish-blue as Nate's.

The subtitle reads Bob Larsen.

"In retrospect, I suppose it was really the party where I might have started drawing some conclusions," he says. "Not about Emily and Mike, but at least about Emily's fidelity. She vanished for quite a while and then returned looking very...satisfied. Happy. Afterglowing, if I'd have just realized it. But there had never been any question of infidelity on either of our parts, and sex was rarely even mentioned. It didn't seem like something I had to worry about. And with Mike? No, that was something where I'd need direct evidence before I could even conceive of it."

Back to Emily as the interviewer asks, "You weren't using birth control?"

"No, I can't use most forms of birth control," she tells us, "and honestly there had been no need for many years."

"Your son had ejaculated inside of you," the interviewer goes on. "Were you concerned about pregnancy?"

"No, not as much as I ought to have been. That way was possibly my most fertile day, and Mike certainly was a virile young man who produced...a great many chances at fertilization, shall we say? But I was caught in the need for and rapturous joy of our coupling. Becoming pregnant by my own son wasn't something I could consider while the aftereffects of my orgasms were still rippling through my body and his semen was still leaking into my panties."

"But you had to know it was a possibility."

"Of course I did. I was a 38-year-old married woman with two children. I was fully aware of the process of human reproduction. At that moment, however, I was not considering it."

Olivia reappears, telling us, "I was watching them close when we packed up to head home, and they were seriously playing the 'We didn't fuck' look for all it was worth, but once I turned around and saw them giving each other these huge smiles, these 'We've got a secret' shit-eating grins that vanished as soon as they knew I was looking."

"Sure we were playing it cool," Mike says, "but it was hard. There'd been this massive pressure, massive tension, and now we'd just given up to it and it felt great. We were just flying, and knowing we shared the secret made it hard not to just giggle."

"I insisted that the windows be open on the way home," Emily says, "and I am afraid I must have had a very smug look on my face the whole way. My body was still thrumming with the aftereffects of the sex, and reliving it in my mind while Mike was in the back seat and undoubtedly doing the same was delightful and thrilling."

"Did you two do anything else that day?" the interviewer asks.

"Not that day, no," Emily says. "Bob and Olivia were both in the house. We needed to keep a level head."

"And did you? Keep a level head?"

Emily's smile turns a bit rueful. "Yes. For a time."

The screen goes black and we see the words:

July 5

Mike reappears and says, "I'd lain awake half the night thinking about everything that had happened, just too horny to sleep and running things over and over in my mind. I felt like I was flyin'. I couldn't wait for the next day, because it was a Sunday - Olivia worked but neither mom or I did, and dad usually did something with his friends or his brother or just ran errands on Sunday, so I knew we'd have time alone. And I knew what we'd do with that time."

"Lying in bed with Bob that night was one of the most remarkable experiences of my life," Emily informs us. "I was aroused - agonizingly so - and even going into the bathroom in the middle of the night to...relieve pressure only whetted my appetite. All night long I simply laid there in my marriage bed with my husband, wishing I was in my son's bed instead, wishing I were being ravished by my son, wanting him on top of me and inside me, wanting to be controlled and owned by him, wishing I were doing everything to him that I never did to my husband.

"I should have known then that that my marriage was dead," she adds, "but that realization took rather longer to sink in."

"Olivia was gone by 11:00 the next morning," Mike informs us with a huge smile, "and dad was out by noon, I think to go help his brother replacing a garage roof. That left just me and mom. All. Day. Long."

"I went upstairs when Bob left," Emily says, "and I wanted to do something special for Mike. All of our encounters thus far had been hurried, rushed things. Now we'd mutually decided to travel further down this road and we had time to do things right, so I wanted this to be memorable. I went to my bedroom and dressed for him. I showered, did my hair and makeup, and picked out something sexy to wear for him."

"I was in my bedroom waitin'," Mike laughs as he appears on the screen. "I knew we were alone, and we hadn't, like, discussed it or anything but we both knew we were gonna go at it. I expected her to just grab me and jump my bones, but after like fifteen minutes she hadn't shown up so I went looking for her."

"I'd locked my door," Emily says with a laugh. "I didn't want him to see me early and ruin the effect, so I told him to go wait for me in his bedroom. I had to promise him several times that the wait would be worth it!"

"What did you put on?" the interviewer asks.

"I didn't have many sexy things at that time, simply because I hadn't needed them for so long. But I did have a very lacy pair of black, French-cut panties that were essentially translucent and displayed my legs and backside to advantage, so I put those on. I accompanied that with a bustier - I had several bustiers to help...rectify certain natural deficiencies."

We see Mike briefly, who explains, "Mom's always thought her boobs are way too small. I think they're perfect, but then I don't get judged for having small tits, so what the hell do I know?"

Back to Emily, who continues, "I chose the best one, which was tight across the tummy and pushed my breasts up. My legs are my best feature, so I owned a lot of stockings of various sorts. I put on a pair of black Cuban heel thigh-highs, and finished it off with a pair of five-inch stilettos that I had bought years before and had only worn perhaps twice before."

"How did you look?" the interviewer asks.

She smiles hugely. "Very, very good."

"I was lying on my bed fidgeting," Mike informs us with a laugh. "You know how hard it is to wait for something that's gonna be the best thing ever? It was a nightmare! And then I hear this sound in the doorway and I look up and there she is, and she's looking absolutely gorgeous. She's always beautiful, right? But that was the first time she made herself look sexy for me, like really sexy, for my eyes only. I musta stammered something idiotic 'cause she kinda swayed across the bedroom, put her hands on her hips, and said, 'Is that so, Mr. Smooth?'"

"It was adorable!" Emily giggles. "He was so very tongue-tied. A woman who's trying to look attractive for a man longs for that result, and it felt thrilling to finally have a man to do that for. It made me want him even more."

"I reached up, took her by the hand, and pulled her on top of me," Mike says. "Body to body, our lips together, my hands running down her back and cupping her ass, the feel of it all, in our own house, in my own bed, with hours before we had to worry about stopping. That was the first time I really, honestly felt like her man."

"Being able to simply relax and not worry about time or being caught was magnificent," Emily tells us as she reappears. "We must have lain there, me atop him, simply kissing, for twenty minutes before he even began to undress me. It was slow, lazy, the perfect way to spend a warm summer afternoon. This was the time we actually began to know each other as lovers, truly know each other."

"It was all so right, so perfect," Mike says. "That's what I keep comin' back to in all this, is that from the start - right from that first time in front of the bikers - it all felt right when we were doin' it. When we weren't doin'it then there'd be guilt and fear and self-loathing and all that, but when we got physical, there was no doubt, man. None at all. We were made for each other. That was it."

"This was really the first time we had had the chance to explore," Emily says. "Part of intimacy is violent passion, of course, but more of it is simply learning every inch of your lover's body, learning how his muscles feel beneath his skin when he's moving, listening to how his breathing changes when you nibble his neck or brush your fingertips over his erection through his underwear. It's learning his moods and desires, learning how he accepts pleasure, learning how his movements and sighs tell you what he wants you to do without the need for words. And even more than that, it's opening yourself to the same exploration by him, because that sort of raw openness leaves you as vulnerable as you can possibly be. Those long lovemaking sessions build the trust and empathy you need as the basis for an ongoing relationship. Just ripping each other's clothes off and fucking, as wonderful as that is, can never give you all that."

"I remember how the sun was coming through my window," Mike tells us. "It was making a bright patch on my sheets, and when bare skin was in that patch of light it made it glow. My mom has amazing skin, just flawless and pale where the sun doesn't normally touch her, and it seemed like it was shining with its own light. I remember she was lying on her side and the stretch of thigh between the tops of her stockings and the little thread of her panties was shining like the moon. I kept running my hand over it just so I could see the contrast between my dark tan and her porcelain. I'll remember that until the day I die."

"How was it being with her in that way now that there was no urgency?" the interviewer asks.

"Oh there was urgency!" Mike laughs. "I know I felt pretty damned urgent at times. But there was no pressure. There was nothing to do but learn about each other and have fun doin' it. We'd had sex before, but this was the first time it felt like..." He trails off, uncertain of his words.

After a moment, the interviewer prompts, "Felt like?"

"It felt like we were together. Not being forced to fuck to save our lives, not acting because the pressure had gotten too great. We were here because we wanted this with each other, and because that seemed more important than anything else at the moment. We felt like we were lovers, not just like we were fucking."

"More intimate?"

"Yeah," Mike nods, echoing his mother's earlier statement. "Intimate is a good word."

"Our clothing came off so gradually that it almost seemed to happen on its own," Emily says. "I recall pushing Mike's shirt up over his abdomen so that I could kiss and lick every rippling muscle and dimple of skin, but then it simply stayed pushed up around his chest for the longest time. He unfastened my bustier in stages, though of course he had my breasts out long before he freed me from the garment. This was the first time he didn't devour my breasts like a starving baby. He stroked my nipples with just his fingertips and made them hard, and then touched me elsewhere for the longest time. Then he tugged my nipples, gently at first and then harder, sending shivers through my body that got stronger and stronger, but then he went back to touching my arms and my shoulders, the backs of my thighs, anywhere but the obvious erogenous zones. By the time he flicked at them with his tongue, I was so worked up that even that light, teasing touch was enough to bring me to the edge of climax!"

"Our first few times were too raucous to be deliberate with anything," Mike says with a chuckle and a grin. "This time, though, I was like, 'Shit, she wants to come from me sucking her tits? Let her come from me sucking her tits.' So I slowly went from flicking with my tongue to licking to nibbling to sucking, and somewhere in there she started to come. It wasn't the biggest, baddest orgasm I'd ever given her and it sure wasn't the best of the day for her, but it just kinda set a tone."

"It was a small, unpresumptuous, perfect little orgasm," Emily recalls, her cheeks aglow with the recollection. "It came on slowly and grew until there was a fire in the depths of my pussy - not a blaze, just a warm, soft, glowing little candle that felt marvelous and promised so very much more. And just from his mouth on my breasts!"

"Mom has amazing hands," Mike tells us. "Everything about her is amazing, but her hands...she's got really deft fingers, really quick and clever. I didn't even really realize she'd opened my pants until she ran her fingers over my cock through my underwear. And it was such a light touch too, I mean I barely felt it, but just the way she ran her fingers around the head and then down the length and then her fingernails over my balls, it just made me stand at attention in an instant."

Emily again, smiling like the cat who caught the canary. "It probably took another fifteen minutes before I actually got him out of the rest of his clothes, and even then I was in no hurry. I sucked his nipples - his nipples are sensitive, which I didn't know until then - and licked my way down his body. I let him feel my breath on his cock, and just when he thought I was going to take it in my mouth, I passed right by and kissed just as slowly down his legs. The poor boy groaned so loudly, but when I worked my way back up, I did take him in my mouth, and I think that made up for it!"

Mike's eyes are bright and excited as he recalls, "She took her sweet time. It was...it was like she was making love to my cock. Not me, not then, just my cock, like my cock was the only thing in the world and she was using her mouth to make it dance for her. And I remember...I remember the way the light was coming in through the window and how it lit up her hair like a halo around her head, and I was staring down at an angel adoring my cock and doing things with her mouth that nobody else ever did. She took me right up to coming, then edged me back down, then back up, then back down. I wanted to come so bad! And normally when we were together, I was in charge. But at that moment, I gave it over to her. It was her tune. She'd make me come when she wanted to."

"This was the blowjob my son deserved," Emily says firmly. "He deserved me worshipping his cock, and that was what I did. I adore oral and I wanted this to be something that he would always remember with excitement and joy. More than that, though, I wanted to learn him in the way that only extended contact can. I kept my mouth on him for perhaps 20 or 25 minutes, and when I sensed he was close I backed down, then raised him up again. And then, finally, when he was throbbing against my tongue and his moans simply didn't stop, I took him to the root and held my mouth there while he came."

"That orgasm," Mike recalls, licking his lips and smiling. "That fucking orgasm. The way I blew off I thought cum was going to shoot out of her ears, but she didn't even flinch. She held her lips tight around the base as I flooded her mouth, and I could feel her swallowing and swallowing..."

"I'd wanted to taste Mike's cum since the first time we were together," Emily tells us with a proud smile. "As I was kneeling in front of those savages with his cock in my mouth, I wanted to make him cum so badly! The sensation of a cock erupting in my mouth, the individual flavor of the man, the fact that I've put aside all pleasure for myself and focused solely on giving him the pleasure he deserves - it's all so perfect! And I have never in my life enjoyed giving oral as much as I did then."

"It was like...fuck, the room got spinny!" Mike laughs. "I couldn't catch my breath. I couldn't move. I was helpless for the longest time. I mean, if dad had walked in with a shotgun I still couldn't have moved, I was fucking paralyzed."

Emily is looking rather pleased with herself as she says, "I knew it was good from his reaction. I just watched him for the longest time, rubbing his thighs at first and then sliding up so my body could press against his. His eyes were closed and his face was beatific. He looked like a medieval painting of a saint, nothing but peace and joy on his face. He was so beautiful!"

"As I was laying there, I just kept thinking that mom had earned some serious pleasure with that," Mike says, "so as soon as I could, like, form coherent words, I told her to get right up on top of me so I could get at her pussy."

"He didn't tell me to take off my panties," Emily says, a kittenish gleam in her eyes, "so I didn't. I straddled his shoulders and lay down with my belly on his, my cheek against his abdomen, and simply gave myself over to him, to do with as he pleased."

"Her panties were completely soaked, so I gave them a long lick right up her slit, all the way back to where the cloth narrowed down to a string, then back the way I came." Mike chuckles, "I did it over and over until her hips were moving and she started muttering, 'Fuck yeah, baby' and "suck my fucking cunt.' Once I get her swearing, I know she's locked in!"

"The moment he peeled aside my panties and put his lips on me, I came hard," Emily laughs, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed. "It was magnificent, because this time I could simply relax and feel it wash over me without knowing that we had to rush or feeling like we oughtn't be doing this at all. My sweet lover was giving me pleasure, and I could simply lie atop him and accept it, for as long as he wished to give it to me."

"The great thing about being in that position," Mike says, "is that all of her juices ran right into my mouth, and she tastes way too good to waste a drop. I could just lie there and move my mouth, and it was so easy to take her from orgasm to orgasm to orgasm, right from peak to peak.

"Plus, just having her there, feeling her weight on top of me, feeling her heat, was such a turn-on. She comes with her whole body, and I could feel her muscles twitching all in her body and her limbs. Whenever I did anything, the response was right there in the way she responded. I could instantly tell when something felt good, and how good it felt, by the way her stomach muscles danced on my chest. How fucking hot is that?"

"I loved every second of simply closing my eyes and letting my son lick me," Emily assures us with complete sincerity, "but I couldn't simply let him do all the work and get nothing in return, and his cock was right in front of me...his, sweet, thick, magnificent cock. He was already hard again, of course, because he gets hard nearly instantly after coming, so I had merely to open my mouth and take him in."

"My first 69 with mom," Mike sighs in happy reminiscence. "Not our last, that's for sure, but definitely memorable. It's so different from fucking, because I'm completely focused on giving her pleasure and she's completely focused on giving me pleasure, and neither of us are thinking about ourselves at all. She just kept coming, and now I could feel every rise and fall of her orgasms in her tongue on my cock. Man...wow!"

"I didn't want him to come in my mouth again," Emily says, then instantly corrects that to, "Well, I did want him to come in my mouth again because it's delicious and feels fantastic, but more than that I wanted that come inside me, as deep in my pussy as he could put it, because that's where his come belongs. Every single drop of it."

"And you still weren't trying to get pregnant?" the interviewer asks, his incredulousness obvious.

"No, not per se," Emily replies. "It's a simple fact that, when a woman loves a man the way I love Mike, nothing in the world can possibly feel as good as having him hammer his hard cock deep inside you and put his come into your womb. There's nothing more natural on Earth than wanting that."

"But you had to know what would eventually happen if you kept doing that," the interviewer insists.

"I wasn't thinking about it," Emily shrugs with a smile, "and if I had thought about it I wouldn't have given a fuck. That need overcame everything else."

Mike again. "We couldn't keep doing that, not when there was actual fucking in the offing. I don't think either of us even said anything or hinted. When the moment was perfect, we both knew and we didn't need anything else. She just lifted herself up, swung around, and then I was inside her."

"We moved together so perfectly," Emily says with a delighted smile. "No hesitation, no falseness, no stumbles. We were one person, one movement, one pleasure. I could hardly tell where I left off and Mike began. I don't know how long it went on because it was timeless and perfect. It was us together the way we should always have been and always be."

"There was this one moment where she was moving her hips in circles on me," Mike says. "It felt so amazing! And the light was coming in at a slant and lighting up her body and mine. It felt so warm, like we were being held in these invisible arms. She smiled down at me, and the expression on her face at that moment was just...angelic. She was an angel. I was making love to an angel. There's no way to get closer to heaven than that."

"We came together," Emily says happily. "Of course we did. And then we lay together, me atop him, face nestled into his neck, with the sun shining off the sweat we had made together."

"I never wanted to move again!" Mike laughs. "It felt too good just to be there with her. But dad was due back we didn't know when, so all we did was make out for a while, just kissing and touching and stroking. When she finally got up and reached for her panties, I kept thinking that it should always be this way between us. We should always be together like this, no rush, no pressure, just us sharing ourselves. It was what we both needed."

"Of course I put my panties on!" Emily laughs. "Mike had just put about twenty gallons of cum in me! I didn't want to stain the carpets!"

"We took a shower together, and that was just fun," Mike tells us. "Playful. We laughed, we washed each other, we fooled around a little, we sucked face in the spray. I felt her up through the towel as we dried each other off. It was a great fucking day."

"What did you do then?" the interviewer asks Emily.

"I believe," she says, "that I went to purchase some shirts."

"Shirts?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I liked to wear tee shirts around the house," she explains, "but all of mine were very baggy. I decided I wanted to emphasize my figure more, so I bought some form-fitting tees. Perhaps I was feeling less...unattractive than before. Or perhaps I simply wanted Mike to be able to appreciate me more readily. I bought shirts, came home, washed them, and was wearing one by the time Bob and Olivia got home."

We see Bob again. "I noticed the shirt immediately. The day before, when we went to the party, was the first time I'd ever seen her wear a tight tee, and here she was in a brand new one. It caught my eye."

"What did you think?" the interviewer asks.

"I was glad. Emily is a beautiful woman and has a lovely figure that she busted her ass to keep. I'd always urged her to show it off a little more, so I was glad to see her drawing attention to it. I didn't think anything else of it."

Olivia now. "They always say that someone changing the way they dress or look or losing weight or whatever is a tipoff that they're having an affair, and bam, there mom was in a tighter shirt than she ever used to wear. I asked her about it, and she was like, 'I went to the store to replace the one I borrowed yesterday and just picked some up for myself,' but I was like, yeah, OK. Sure."

"Did she replace the shirt of yours she ruined?" the interviewer asks.

"Oh yeah, with three new ones, all washed and put on my bed when I got home," Olivia chuckles, "so I made out OK!"

Black screen with white letters:

July 6 - July 23

Mike tells us, "The next couple weeks were a blur. A happy blur! Mom and I took every chance to be together, like whenever we were alone for half an hour we'd be at it like rabbits."

"What about you and Miss Williamson?" the interviewer asks as picture of a pretty redheaded teenager is shown on the screen.

The picture is labeled Hannah Williamson.

Mike reappears and says, "I forgot about her for a few days, but she was a nice girl and I didn't want to hurt her or anything, so after that I started hanging out with her again. It was weird because I felt like I was 'with' mom, so it felt like I was cheating. But at the same time...I couldn't be 'with' mom, could I? I mean, she was married to my father, not to mention the fact that she's my mom. So no matter how much heat there was there, it's not like we could, like, date, or, like, be anything more than what we were. Right?

"But there was something else too. Being in the house with mom was hard when we couldn't do anything, because...god, I wanted to do things all the time, no matter who else was in the house, no matter what else was going on. I'd see her talking with dad or on the phone with grandma or whatever, and all I'd want to do is rip off her clothes and fuck her on the floor. Being there was driving me crazy. I had to get out and take my mind off of it, and I couldn't always do stuff with friends, so sometimes Hannah was the only one there to keep my mind off things. So I talked about the whole thing with mom, and she agreed I should keep dating Hannah."

"Did you have sex with Hannah?" the interviewer asks.

"Not right away. Hannah wanted to because we had been, so it was weird and awkward that we weren't fooling around."

"What did you do?"

"We went to a movie. We went out to dinner a couple times. We went to the mall -"

"No, I meant physically."

"Oh. There was no way I could avoid kissing her. I mean she kissed me, and she wasn't taking no for an answer. And we felt each other up, you know? There was no way around that. But nothing more than that until...well, something else happened later. I made a lot of excuses in the meantime."

We see Emily again as the interviewer asks, "What did you think of Mike seeing Hannah?"

Her face sours. "I...understood his need to spend time outside the house. Acting as though nothing was happening between us was exceptionally difficult when we were forced to do it. And suddenly dropping Miss Williamson would have been cruel, given the tempo of their relationship prior to that. I also realized something he did not - that completely withdrawing from his social set would raise questions we did not want raised. He needed to maintain as much of his old life as he could. Still, I have never cared for Miss Williamson."

"What did you think of Mike seeing Hannah?" the interviewer repeats.

Emily's sour look becomes one of distinct irritation. "He had to do it. He was acting precisely how a young man acts when he is infatuated, and his friends would have noticed that. Being with Miss Williamson provided him a cover. An excuse, if you will That doesn't mean I enjoyed it, and in light of what came later I came to regret agreeing that he should see her at all."

Olivia appears again. "So I was definitely keeping an eye out for evidence, but man, mom was good at covering their tracks. Other than changing Mike's bedsheets like every single day, there was nothing I could really point to. Yeah there were these constant looks between them and they were totes giving off the vibe, but that's not evidence."

"You were collecting evidence," the interviewer says. "What were you planning to do with it?"

"I don't know!" Olivia laughs. "I wasn't thinking that far ahead, because even though I knew they were fucking, I didn't believe they were fucking. Understand the difference? I knew with my head that that was what was going on, but that didn't mean I really accepted it. I was going to need direct evidence before I'd really be convinced. Beyond convincing myself, I didn't have a plan."

Emily again. The interviewer asks, "You were with Mike many times during the next two or two-and-a-half weeks?"

Emily's smile is lascivious and delighted. "We seized every chance we had. Two, three...six times a day."

"Six times?"

"On good days," she laughs, "and those were very good days! But no day went by without us finding a way to be together at least once, even if it was only a very quick chance seized when we were in the house by ourselves for a short time."

"Did you do anything when there were others in the house?"

"Not yet," Emily replies. "We certainly began to eventually, but not right away. We were still able to exercise enough restraint to take elementary precautions - but it was definitely not easy! I had never been so hungry for sex before, and certainly not so hungry for one person!"

"What does that mean?"

Emily blushes demurely. "When I discovered sex in high school, I also discovered that I very much enjoyed it. I developed a...reputation."

"What sort of reputation?"

Her blush deepens. "As being sexually promiscuous."

"Were you?"

Her face a shining, bright red, she shifts uncomfortably and says, "I enjoyed sex and saw no reason to deprive myself. I was hardly the slut was purported to be, but I was more active than most girls and I never felt shame about it. Sex is wonderful, one of the very best things in life, and I thought it was nonsense to deprive myself of it simply to suit ridiculous and antiquated notions of morality that were, in any case, applied unequally. Why should a young man who has several partners be considered a 'cocksman' or 'player' but a girl with the same number be considered a 'slut?' If anything, I was striking a blow for women everywhere."

"...really?"

She sets her chin defiantly. "Yes."

"All right. So even then, you didn't want sex as much as you did with your son?"

"No, not even then, when my teenage hormones were raging and everything was new. And aside from that, my desires tended to be less...fixed then. I became deeply infatuated with my partners, but my infatuations were mostly short-lived and ready to move on to another partner as soon as things began to feel mundane or ordinary with the man I was with."

"How long did this continue?"

"Until Bob and I met. I believe there's already been a discussion of my reputation when when I met him. I had earned it in college, but again, it was nothing to be ashamed of. A young man certainly wouldn't have been ashamed of having multiple partners, so why ought I have been?"

"And Bob was just another infatuation."

"He was. Pregnancy altered everything, of course, and the hectic life of a financially-struggling young family effectively killed it."

"Until Mike."

"Until Mike," she agreed. "And once Mike and I simply let go and accepted our desires, I thought of almost nothing but him. Everything else began to suffer as we went, from my dancing to my housekeeping and cooking. I could focus on nothing - I'd be rehearsing for the show I was in and suddenly the other dancers would chastise me for daydreaming. Of course I was daydreaming constantly, about my son, about what we'd done, about what we'd continue to do, about what I wanted to do to him and what I wanted him to do to me. I dreamed ten thousand erotic scenarios, most of which were foolishly impossible, though no less erotic for that."

"What sort of scenarios?"

She giggles self-consciously. "Oh, the sorts of things a schoolgirl dreams about. Sex on white-sand beaches with waves crashing over us, making love in the grass under a blazing sunset, sex on a vast canopy bed with silken sheets, that sort of thing. It was all nonsense, especially for a woman rapidly approaching 40!"

"Was there one encounter between you and your son during that time that stands out in your memory?"

"There is one," she admits, her smile becoming mischievous. "Well, there are many, but one in particular encapsulates the entire thing for me just perfectly. It was about a week after the party, so Mike and I had become accustomed to enjoying each other. It was a weekend and I was alone in the house - or so I thought. I'd gathered the laundry and taken all of it into the basement. Laundry has always been a meditative experience for me. Certainly no other family member wants to help, so it has always been a time when I am left alone with my thoughts."

"What were you thinking about this time?" the interviewer asks.

"Mike!" Emily says with a laugh, as though the question was absurd. "We'd had no chance to do anything that day, and I thought we wouldn't be given the chance later because Bob was going to be coming back home in about an hour. It would have been the first day for a week that Mike and I wouldn't have made love, and that was an unpleasant prospect. I was using the quiet time to center myself. I has music on and was lost in it."

"What sort of music do you listen to when you're alone?"

"Oh, I like a lot of things my children hate," she replies with a laugh. "If memory serves, that day it was Bruce Springsteen's Greetings from Asbury Park, or possibly The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle. Something early, with long songs, emotional songs that a listener can get lost in. I was carefully folding clothes, very much taking my time with the task, swaying my hips and humming...and then, without warning, I felt big, strong hands on my hips."

"What did you do?"

"I screamed! I nearly leaped out of my skin! For all I knew it was some random lunatic come to murder me. I tried to whirl and, I think, claw his face, but the hands wrapped me up and held me tightly, and I could do nothing. I was terrified! I screamed so loudly that it took Mike whispering in my ear three or four times before I actually heard him."

"What did he say?"

She laughs. "'Quiet, mom, do you want the neighbors to hear?' When I realized it was him I turned around in his arms and gave his chest a pounding!"

"What did he do then?"

"He laughed and kissed me quite...hungrily. And of course I kissed him back equally fervently. He said he had told his boss that he was sick and left early because he knew I was home and he wanted, and I quote, 'to fuck my brains out.' That was a program I could certainly support!

"He only let me kiss him briefly, however, because he turned me back around. He simply put his hands on my hips and turned me to face away from him. I couldn't have resisted his strength even if I had wanted to, and that was thrilling and perfect for me. I am in in excellent physical condition, of course, as a professional dancer, and part of that is being strong, but Mike's strength dwarfs mine. When he puts his hands on me and pushes me, twists me, bends me into the shape and position he wants, I'm like a reed before a hurricane. He overwhelms me, and in those moments I'm small and frail and delicate and perfectly, utterly feminine.

"Then his hands were on me, pushing my shirt up, undoing my bra, feeling my breasts. His fingers pulled at my nipples as he put his lips on my neck and nibbled in all the right places to make me tingly and wet. I wiggled my ass against him and felt him hard against me - I remember that I gasped when I felt that, because I knew what it meant. My shirt came off in a flash and he was kissing his way down my back. The air conditioning was on and the cold air was blowing on me, so I shivered as he left a trail of saliva down my spine. All I could do was lean forward and put my hands on the folding table and let him do what he wanted to. As it turned out, what he wanted to do was peel my shorts off and leave me completely naked. I stepped out of them and kicked them aside as he - oh, I loved this part! - he put his hands on my ass and spread my cheeks apart. Before I knew what was happening, I felt his mouth on my ass!"

"Do you like that?"

"I love it! He'd done it only a couple of times, but I just..." She shivers in delight. "There is something about it that feels so very decadent!"

"More decadent than having sex with your own son?"

She laughs. "Given that he was the one performing analingus on me, it was a cumulative effect! But as he ran his tongue around that hole and kissed it, I could feel my arousal running down my thigh. I was literally dripping!"

"Did you and Mike ever have anal sex?"

"No, not in the sense I'm sure you mean. He never fucked my ass, I mean, simply because neither of us is particularly aroused by that, rather than through any 'moral' considerations. After all, my son and I were screwing like rabbits every chance we got, so neither of us were feeling particularly constrained by conventional morality! But I loved him licking my ass and he loved doing it - and very shortly after that we discovered that we liked it just as much when we changed places in that act. There are a lot of nerves there, and having those nerves teased with a tongue feels wonderful! In fact, he made me come that way."

"And you came loudly?"

"I always do if I'm not gagged," she giggles. "Mike loves my shouted profanity, and I barely even realize I'm doing it, much less have any ability to control it. So, yes, I am quite certain I shouted something along the lines of 'Lick my ass, motherfucker,' or 'Tongue that hole and make me fucking come.' Something in that genre. It was hardly intellectually stimulating, but my man wasn't complaining."

"And it would have been difficult for him at any rate, with his tongue buried in your bum."

"Very true! He was putting his mouth to better use than talking. Anyway, I was still bobbing along on the ripples of that orgasm when Mike manhandled me to the washing machine. I was helpless, he could have tossed me outside nude and I would barely have been conscious of my surroundings. However, I absolutely did realize what was going on when he pressed me up against the machine so that my clit touched it - the vibrations from it were electrifying! In the aroused state I was in, that alone might have been enough to push me over into another orgasm, but it was then that he took me by the hips again and slid his cock into me. Oh! That orgasm! I lifted up onto my toes and ground my clit into the machine as he took me from behind. I tried to straighten up, but he put one hand in the middle of my back and forced me chest-down onto the lid so I could feel the vibrations in my nipples as well. He took me hard, fast, and all I could do was lie there and come and feel him possess me. It was a perfect moment in time. When he came inside me, I felt so very happy, so very complete. That was a very memorable afternoon!"

We see Mike now as the interviewer asks, "During that two-and-a-half week period, was there one sexual encounter with your mother that you find particularly memorable?"

Mike grins. "There's like twenty of 'em. But yeah, there's one I still think about. Mom and I were really careful about what we did and when. We had to be super careful to keep from getting caught. We always made sure we were alone, we always made sure of everybody's schedule, we always made sure we couldn't be spotted or overheard, and we always made sure we had time to get cleaned up before we saw anyone else came home. We always did that. At first."

"At first?" the interviewer asks.

"Yeah. We were real careful at first. We made sure we'd get done like an hour before anybody got home so we'd have a chance to wash sheets, take a shower, be sure that all the stray underwear and clothes were picked up off the floor and all the cum drips were mopped up. But after like a week we started to get comfortable. We'd done it probably fifteen times or more during that week, so we were getting used to being together. I mean, at first every time we were together there was still this adrenaline rush like we were gonna get caught or somebody would find out or something, but once that wore off it started feeling like it was...'routine' isn't the right word, because it never, ever got routine, but it started feeling less dangerous. And when something starts to feel less dangerous, you get relaxed and take less precautions."

"How did that process go? What corners got cut first?"

"The timing. When we were together we didn't want it to end, so we kept pushing it later and later before we stopped. We shrunk the time from an hour to half an hour, just barely enough time to get sheets in the washer and catch a shower. More than once we'd just barely gotten cleaned up and the wash running before dad or Olivia came home."

"Were you conscious of this?"

"Oh yeah, of course. It was always, 'Just once more,' 'Just a few more minutes cuddling,' 'Just a little longer in the shower together.' We knew we were pushing it, but it's not like we were doing it with anyone else in the house...yet. We figured we were being careful enough. Which was stupid. I mean sooner or later we were bound to get caught. But then hindsight is 20/20."

"What about birth control?"

Mike makes a wry, amused face. "I was honestly starting to get worried because we weren't taking any precautions at all. When it was all new I wasn't thinking about that, I was just thinking about her and the sex, but once we settled into it, yeah it became a concern for me. And it's not like we were even taking, like, elementary precautions. Unless I came in her mouth, I was coming in her pussy - and I only came in her mouth like twice a week. That left a lot of spunk up inside her. But then she actually got her period like...two weeks or so after the party, I think. Right around the time we did this thing that I'm about to tell you."

"Was that a relief?"

"It was, yeah, but not really in the way you'd expect. It basically meant I stopped thinking about it at all. It was like, 'Oh, hey, I didn't knock her up, I don't have to worry about that anymore!' Which was idiotic, but when you're madly in love with someone - and you're 18 years old - you don't really think clearly. I mean, yeah, I didn't knock her up in those two weeks, but she was a fertile woman and I was a potent guy and we were doing it multiple times a day. Sooner or later biology was gonna happen.

"Anyway, this one time dad was at work and I think Olivia was on a road trip with friends, so we knew we had all day long. We fucked in the living room, then in the kitchen, then in the bathroom, then I think in the kitchen again, and then we wound up in my bedroom. We knew it was gonna be the last one of the day just based on what time it was, so we were really milking it for all it was worth."

"Was the last one of the day always a long session?"

"Oh yeah. It was like, yeah, if we have to go twelve hours without acknowledging that we were fucking, we wanted enough to carry us over. And besides, that was like my sixth or seventh orgasm of the day. I was a healthy 18-year-old, but there's still a limit to how fast you can make the spunk, right? So we went past the half-hour mark before we had to start worrying about cleaning up - I think we'd barely gotten started by then - and then the 20-minute mark...then the 15-minute mark. And we were both watching the time by then, because we knew we were really pushing it.

"Mom started to get worried I wouldn't finish in time, so she started doing all this Kegel magic which, had it been my first or second time of the day, would have gotten me off in ten seconds. But I was running dry! I remember nailing her to the mattress, just hammering her down, me on top, her folded double with her ankles up on my shoulders, kissing just as hard as we were fucking, right? And man, we were making a fucking racket too, with my headboard rattling the wall. It sounded like the whole place was gonna come down around us, and that's not even counting the sex sounds and the moaning and the filth that came out of her mouth when my lips weren't on hers. Like, even my balls slapping her ass were loud.

"There came this point when we realized that if we wanted to cover up the evidence and even just take a quick shower, we had to stop then. I mean, we had to stop right then. I glanced at the clock and saw what time it was, and then she looked at the clock and I could see worry in her eyes...no, not worry, just concern. Just acknowledgment that, hey, it's time to come or get off the mom, right? And for just a split second I started to slow down, like my rhythm faltered...and then I kissed her hard and started fucking again."

"How did she react to that? I mean she must have known what that meant."

"Of course she did. She just moaned into my mouth and squeezed my cock so hard with her pussy that it felt like she was trying to rip it off. It was maybe the most turned on I'd seen her up to that point. It was like...yeah, fuck it, let's go for it. Let's do it."

"You were willing to be caught in the act by your father?"

"Well it wasn't like that...we thought. It was more like we were willing to take a chance on both of us being all sweated up and having my room smell like a brothel still when dad got home, right? We'd never done that before. We figured we still had time to finish before dad got home, but, like, my cum was going to be running into her panties when she greeted him at the door."

"That didn't worry you?"

"It should have, but it didn't. Not then, like, not right then. All I wanted was to put my seed as deep into my woman as I could get it. I wasn't thinking about shit else. And she responded to that, you know? She responded to the fact that I was willing to flaunt it a little to dad, to take the risk that dad might realize something was up. Now, it wasn't much of a risk, because dad was pretty fucking oblivious at this point, but it was more a risk than we'd taken before, and what's sexier than danger? And we thought we'd be done before dad got home, because he was regular as clockwork. Usually.

"So there we were, goin' at it - and then we heard the garage door open. The door was on a track that gave off this loud squeak you could hear all through the house, so we knew right away what it was, and we knew it had to be dad not Olivia because only him and mom parked in the garage. So, fuck! Dad was home!"

"What did you do?"

Mike grins. "I looked mom in the eye and slammed in as hard as I could."

"With your father in the house?"

"He was in his car, in the garage," Mike corrects. "But yeah. Just knowing he was there was the edge I needed to come. Mom's eyes got gigantic and she started to howl, so I kissed her and came as deep inside her as I could. Her insides were just freaking on my cock, spasming, doing things she'd never done before. She sucked every drop of cum right out of my balls. Usually the seventh or eighth orgasm of the day is a little one, but that...what was one of the best I've ever had."

"So she approved of this?"

"Well...yeah. Her whole body shook. I could feel her thighs quaking where they wrapped around my body. I think we fucking levitated off the bed for a few seconds there."

"So you simply laid there post-coitus as your father came in the house and -"

"No! Good Lord no!" Mike laughs. "Are you fucking kidding? I don't think I'd really finished coming before I was up and yanking my clothes on - well, my shorts. I ran downstairs and was in the kitchen, shirtless and sweaty and stinking of sex, and I was just reaching into the fridge for a soda when dad came strolling in the door."

"What did he do?"

"He said hello," Mike shrugs. "I told him I'd been out for a run. He said the power had gone out in their building so everybody had left a half-hour early. Mom took a quick shower and came down a few minutes later. That was that, except for the looks mom and I kept giving each other all day."

"What sort of looks?"

"The sort of looks two people who just got away with something they really shouldn't have gotten away with give each other. I mean...we absolutely, without a doubt shoulda been caught then, but we weren't."

"What effect did that have on you?"

"We got more careful for about a week," Mike says, "and then we got more reckless. A lot more reckless."

We now see Olivia, who says, "This whole thing was starting to drive me a little crazy. I mean...wouldn't it? Once you start thinking something like that about your own mom and brother, you're going to find it's hard to stop thinking about it until you get proof one way or the other. It's just...you don't want to know, but you have to know."

"What did you do?" the interviewer asks.

"It was frustrating!" Olivia replies with a laugh. "Because, look, I thought what mom and Mike were doing - or what I thought they were doing - was really creepy, but everything I could think of to get evidence was just as creepy."

"Explain?"

"OK, so the first thought I had was putting a cam in Mike's room or my parents' bedroom to get video. But then I started thinking about how creepy that was, that I was trying to get a video of two family members doing it. And besides, if I was wrong - and I had to admit that was a possibility - then I was the creep. If they weren't doing anything and Mike found my cam in his bedroom? I mean...what would he think of me?"

"He might have thought you had prurient interest in him."

"I know! And what if he'd have reciprocated? Oh my god, I'd have died of embarrassment! I'd have had to run away from home."

"At the very least. What did you think of next?"

"I kept trying to catch them doing stuff. Not actually screwing, but kissing or...something. Anything."

"With what result?"

"Nothing! I saw them giving each other looks all the time, but those could have been completely innocent. Maybe they had an inside joke, you know? Or maybe I was just imagining the whole thing. It could have been confirmation bias, just me seeing what I expected to see and what I was looking for."

"There was no physical evidence?"

"Once I found some...um...'soiled' sheets on Mike's bed, but that didn't mean anything. He was officially dating that Hannah chick, and she was bragging to everybody about how much she was getting from him so that didn't prove anything. Hell, maybe he had a wet dream. And then toward the end of July they both started acting a little spooked for a while, so I started wondering if I had been imagining the whole thing."

"Your mother had changed her wardrobe, of course."

"Oh yeah," Olivia nods. "She was suddenly dressing a lot sexier, and not just her tight tee shirts. She bought a bunch of sexy bras and panties, a bunch of really seductive lingerie. And all of a sudden she was definitely acting like she was getting it regular. But that could have just meant she was having an affair with some guy not named Mike Larsen."

"But wouldn't that have been just as important to know?"

Olivia makes a slightly surprised, slightly disgusted face. "No! If she was getting outside action I didn't even want to know."

"That's a...slightly curious attitude."

"Why? Mom's a human woman, and believe it or not, human women need sex just like human men do. It was obvious that dad wasn't giving it to her."

"How was that obvious?"

Olivia frowns, then laughs. "Have you met my dad? He's an awesome guy and I adore him, but I can't even really imagine him having sex. Can you?"

"I generally try not to imagine other men having sex."

She laughs again. "OK, well I do, and I can't. But mom's different. She's just more...physical. Dad's in awesome shape, especially for a man his age, but he does it because it's healthy. Mom's a dancer. She loves to move, she loves to sweat, she loves exertion. Dad's up in his head a lot more than mom is. Mom is just a really physical person, and sex is part of that. So of course she'd want it, and if she wasn't getting it from dad then it was perfectly understandable that she'd go outside the marriage."

"But that's not something you'd want to know?" the interviewer repeats.

"No. Sex is part of a successful marriage - or at least it is if at least one of the people in the marriage wants sex. Mom wasn't acting unhappy. She was happier than she'd been before, in fact. She wasn't taking anything away from dad. She needed it, dad wasn't giving it to her, she was getting it from somebody else. I was fine with that. I mean, there was this hot guy like two houses down that was always giving her the eye, and if she was fucking him I'd have been happy for her as long as it didn't break up the marriage."

"So then why were you trying so hard to catch her and Mike?"

"Because that would be creepy! Jeez. That's obvious."

There is a silent pause as the camera lingers on Olivia. At length, the interviewer asks, "So what did you do then?"

She shrugs and says, "I made a plan."

The screen goes black and we see a card with white letters:

July 24 - July 30

Emily appears. "Bob returning unexpectedly while Mike and I were making love was terribly frightening. Of course the sheer danger of it was tremendously erotic in the instant it happened, but that was because Mike and I were already making love when that element was introduced. At that point we never would have done anything had we known Bob would return while we were making love."

"Did it cause a change in your behavior?" the interviewer asks.

"Oh my yes," Emily assures us solemnly. "Speaking for myself, I was quite terrified. It was an eye-opening moment, to come so close to being discovered in that way. Had Bob simply parked outside the garage, as he sometimes does, we'd never have heard him until he came up the stairs and caught my son and I in flagrante delicto, and that would have been catastrophic."

"I was really rattled by it," Mike confirms as we see him again. "Once the buzz had worn off, we were like, 'Shit, that was insane.' It was too goddamn close, right? If dad had walked in on us it would have been...bad."

"Did you and your mother discuss what to do from there?" the interviewer asks.

"No. That was the weird thing, we never actually discussed anything. At first we just let pressure build up until we had to act. Then we stopped even trying to keep our hands off each other. Now this happened, and we both pulled back at the same time and basically went cold turkey."

Emily reappears as the interviewer asks, "Was it difficult to go from such frequent intimate contact to no intimacy at all?"

Emily does something very un-Emily-like: she gives a short, sharp bark of loud laughter, then cuts herself off sharply with a look of contrition on her face. "Yes," she says, an embarrassed flush on her cheeks. "Yes, it was challenging."

Mike again. "It was hard as fuck," Mike confirms. "I was hard as fuck, all the time. We saw each other all the time, however many times a day, and that built up steam between us. We were used to letting that steam off...multiple times a day. Multiple times. And all of a sudden we were just letting it build and build and build? Of course it was hard, dude.

"Something had to give. We were in a situation that couldn't last. We couldn't keep going this way. I'd have busted wide open. I wouldn't have been able to make it."

"There was certainly a large and ever-increasing amount of stress," Emily says as she appears again, "but the real danger was that the stress would cause us to be caught in some indiscretion."

"Being caught having sex," the interviewer clarifies.

"No, we were not having sex, so we couldn't be caught doing it," Emily explains patiently. "However, that did not mean that we were not showing signs of stress. I could barely take my eyes off of Mike, and he apparently felt the same way because he was perpetually staring at me in a way that is hardly appropriate for a more typical relationship between mother and son. Very quickly I entered a state where I was almost constantly sexually aroused, and when one is constantly aroused without a release, it becomes very difficult to conceal that fact. I recall one family dinner when I, sitting across the table from my son, was so aroused that I could smell my own scent even over those of the food. And Mike, of course, had a continuous erection...and his erections are of a size that they are difficult to conceal."

"So you were afraid that your husband and daughter would notice you were horny?"

"I was afraid that we would be seen giving each other lustful looks, since we were exchanging them with great frequency. Mike was a young, ardent man, and young and ardent men can be very impetuous. I was afraid he would choose an inopportune moment to steal a kiss or a grope or to say an unguarded word. There were hundreds of ways we might have given ourselves away."

"But that didn't happen."

"Not yet, no. But something, somewhere had to give."

We see Olivia once more. "The rising tension was so, so, so obvious. When those two were together in a room there was like this static electricity charge hanging in the air when they weren't looking at each other, and it was like lightning when they locked eyes. And it was so, so, so obvious that it was erotic tension."

"What did you make of it?" the interviewer asks.

"I didn't know. I didn't know they'd backed off of each other, so I didn't know why they suddenly went from sly smiles to, like, their eyes bugging out and their teeth grinding and being all fidgety all the time. I mean, if it was any other two people I'd have just told them to get a room, but...not appropriate in this case!"

"So what did you do?"

"I kept watch. And that plan I mentioned before? I put it into action."

Black screen with white letters:

July 31

"I remember that night," Mike laughs. "Not like I'm ever gonna forget it. We'd had a big dinner, and it was the first time in a few days that Olivia had been around for it so it was kind of an event. I volunteered to help mom with the dishes just so I could spend time alone in the same room with her, but she told me she'd handle it herself."

"I knew I was reaching my breaking point," Emily explains. "My whole body ached for Mike, but more than that, my whole soul ached for him. Not having him, being deprived of him, was physically painful. I knew very well that if I had been in the kitchen alone with Mike, I would have broken down and begged him to take me."

"With Bob and Olivia in the house?" the interviewer asks.

"With Bob and Olivia in the next room," Emily corrects. "It had reached that point. I could not risk it."

"I went up to my bedroom and texted some friends for a half an hour or so," Mike says, "but then I remembered I needed to wash a shirt that I'd gotten really dirty at work, so I went down the basement and made up a load of wash."

"I didn't know that Mike had gone downstairs," we see Emily say. "I knew there was a little washing that needed to be done, and Olivia and her friends had left the family room in the basement a mess, so when I was done with the dishes I went into the basement and into the laundry room."

"I was in the laundry when mom walked in," Mike says, "and we both froze. We locked eyes and just...froze, staring at each other. I know it was only a couple of seconds, if that, but subjectively the moment just hung there. I don't think my heart beat. I'm pretty sure I didn't have a rational thought."

Emily again. "We stared at each other for a split second, and then he was on me and we were kissing very fiercely. He crashed into me like a wave and I opened myself for him."

"I think mom got my name out before I shut her up with my tongue in her mouth," Mike says. "It was fuckin' game on. Neither of us were gonna stop."

"The whole thing happened in such a rush!" Emily says breathlessly. "It was a flurry of motion, pushing enough clothes aside that we could consummate, devouring each other with our kisses. Somehow my shorts ended up kicked across the room and my panties on top of the dryer. Mike had me up against the wall with one of my legs riding up on his hip as he slammed himself into me!"

"It was pretty fierce," Mike chuckles. "I had a week of pent-up aggression to let loose, and man did she get every bit of it. Pretty soon I needed to pull back from the kiss to actually be able to breathe, and of course she started to howl."

"I can't help it!" Emily laughs as we see her again. "Even when I'm not getting fucked so hard I can't sit down the next day - and I couldn't sit down the day after that fucking - I simply spew filth and scream when I'm having good sex."

"And this was good sex?" the interviewer asks.

She purrs a, "Woooonnnnnderful sex, even if my poor little pussy was bruised and battered the next day."

"So I did the only thing I could," Mike continues with a mischievous glint in his eyes. "I covered her mouth with my hand and fucked her even harder!"

"The feeling of his hand muffling my screams simply made me come all the harder!" Emily laughs as she reappears. "I was being slammed against the wall with every thrust, my cunt was being battered to a pulp, and I was utterly helpless to do anything but take it. Having my screams muffled by my son's hand was simply the icing on the cake."

"We didn't last long," Mike says. "Not after a week, and not with dad and Olivia one floor above. She was coming like a waterfall and pussy-dancing on my cock. It was too much. I don't think the whole thing lasted ten minutes before we were done."

Emily nods to herself at the recollection. "I think we were both in shock at the recklessness of it all. To have done what we did with the rest of the family within shouting distance was mad, especially given how I shout. It was the purest luck that we weren't discovered, and we both knew it."

"The way the basement was laid out, we were fucking with just a plywood wall between us and the stairs," Mike says. "If Olivia or dad had opened the basement door, there would have been no doubt what was going on. Dumb fucking luck, right? But it taught us a lesson about goin' cold turkey."

"We dressed again quickly," Emily tells us, "and we talked as I felt my son's cum leaking from my body into my panties. We had a very hushed, very hurried discussion about what had happened and we both agreed that we'd been foolish to try to simply stop something that was so...powerful. We couldn't stop."

Mike reappears. "At the same time, though, we couldn't just go at it like we had been before dad almost caught us, right? We needed to be really, really careful. We needed to be absolutely positive we never did anything when there was even a little chance of getting caught."

"In the end, we made a rule that...well, ought to have worked," Emily says. "We would only have sex when we had enough time to get fully cleaned up and have everything put back in order with, at the very least, 90 minutes to spare. Of course that meant that we could not do it nearly as often as we had been before."

"It wasn't like I was delighted by that rule, but it made sense," Mike says. "We had to be careful. It just meant we could look forward to our times together more, is what I thought. Sounded like as good a solution as we could manage."

Another black screen with white lettering:

August 4

Olivia reappears as the interviewer asks, "So what was this plan you had?"

"I'd pretend to go to work, then double back to the house after like an hour or two," she says. "I rode my bike to work when it wasn't raining, and there was a way to get almost up to the back door without being seen from the house. I might have used that way once or twice when I'd sneaked out without permission. So I'd come up to the house and check it out. If Mike's car and mom's car were both there, I'd look in the windows and stuff to see if I could see them."

"And that must have borne fruit."

"Not right away. At first all I saw was one or the other in a room by themselves looking pissed off and frustrated. But the third time.."

"What happened then?"

"When I got up to the house I did the peeking and didn't see anybody. Then I saw Mike's shorts and underwear in a pile by the sofa, like he'd been sitting there when he took them off and just left them when he walked out of the room."

"That was unusual?"

Olivia laughs. "Gee, ya think? Of course it was unusual!"

"And did you hear anything?"

"Nah, it was hot as hell that day, just brutal, so the house was shut up and the AC was on. So I let myself in...and as soon as I opened the door, I heard it."

"Heard what?"

"Mom swearing. Mom never swears, but I could hear her voice coming from upstairs saying just the filthiest shit, just a stream of it."

"What was she saying?"

Olivia blushes. "I'm not gonna repeat what my mom was saying as she was getting fucked, jeez! But, like, there was no doubt that was what I was hearing. So I pulled out my phone and started recording."

Olivia's face is replaced by a shaky cellphone video. The bearer of the phone moves slowly up a staircase. We hear Emily's voice, muffled and first and thick with lust, calling out. Only a few words can be made out initially: "Fuck...pound me...use my fucking..."

As the bearer of the phone tops the stairs and begins to move down the hallway toward an open door, Emily's voice gets louder and more distinct. "Fuck me, baby! Fuck me hard! You know how much I need it, you know how much I need your fat cock in my tight little cunt! Give it to me! Give it to me, you motherfucker!"

At last the camera reaches the door and slowly, cautiously is pushed so that it can see what's going on inside the room. It is obviously the master bedroom, which means that the bed that comes into sight is the marriage bed. The video is badly framed, but it's clear what's happening. We see two people, a man and a woman, lying on the bed with the man on top; the spray of golden hair we catch from further up is additional confirmation that the woman in question is Emily, as if her voice weren't enough proof. Her legs are wrapped around his waist with her ankles crossed behind his back, and we see between his braced legs as an impressive cock saws in and out of a pussy. "Fuck! I love your cock so much, Mike! I love your cock inside me, it belongs inside me every day, every fucking minute! Give it to me! Harder! Fuck yes I love being your filthy little slut, baby, I just love it! Yes!"

The screen fades to black and the credits start to roll, but we hear an additional fifteen seconds or so of Emily begging her son to fuck her before that too fades away, leaving us in silence for the rest of the credits.

Folie a Deux, Episode 05
Mike and Emily deal with discovery.  
As you may have deduced by the fact that I have written this chapter, I am alive. It's been a long and painful few years for me, but I finally find myself in a place where I can finish this story and move onto new ones. For those of you who've sent me supportive messages during the interim, thank you. It was always a delight to see fan mail. In addition, I've recently learned that many of the answers I sent oat using the feedback system were not received, so I apologize for that.

For those of you new to this story, it won't make a lick of sense unless you read the previous parts. Also for those of you new to the story, the unusual format is a very deliberate creative choice; if you like it, awesome, and if you don't...well,not much I can do about that. Not all my stories will be this way, so please check back when I get others up on the site.

Folie à Deux

Episode 5: Pressure

*

The screen is dark as we hear the voice of a young woman whom we recognize as Olivia Larsen. "In a documentary or something, I remember I heard an Abraham Lincoln quote."

We see in closeup the face of a beautiful young woman, or at least a young woman who would be beautiful except for the yellowed pouches beneath each eye that speak of a healing trauma -- her slightly-crooked nose gives a clue to the nature of that trauma. She has a lovely, expressive mouth, soaring Classical cheekbones, and wavy, bright red hair pulled back from her face.

"I can't remember the context," Olivia goes on, "but he said dealing with something was like holding a wolf by the ears -- you didn't like it, but you didn't dare let it go. And I always remembered that quote because, you know, it's a vivid image and you get what he means right away. But when I heard it, I was like, 'Why the fuck would you grab a wolf by the ears? The fix you're in is your own fault.' I always thought that it was kind of stupid because of that." She sighs. "And then I went and grabbed a wolf by the ears."

We now see a title card in white letters against a black background:

Folie à Deux

Episode 5: Pressure

After a few moments, the title card is replaced by one reading:

August 5

Back to Olivia. "I'd spent so much time and energy on this, on wondering if it was really happening and how to get concrete proof, that I never stopped to consider what would happen if I actually, you know, got the proof. And then I got the video of Mike and mom going at it and...well..." She holds up her hands, fists clenched around imaginary wolf ears.

"What did you want to do?" comes from offscreen. The voice is that of the female interviewer from the first and third episodes.

Olivia gave a short, mirthless laugh. "I kind of wanted to go back in time to stop myself from getting that video."

"After all the effort you'd put into it," the interviewer asks, "why would you wish that?"

"Because...look, I'd spent a month being pretty convinced my mom was having sex with my brother, and that was weird and uncomfortable and it made it awkward to be with them. But I didn't actually know anything. I could tell myself I was wrong. I could hope I was wrong. But then I got the video..."

Olivia is replaced onscreen by the video we saw before: a cellphone video of Mike atop his mom, both naked, Mike's hips rising and falling in rhythm to Emily's pleas to fuck her and fill her with his cum. The clip lasts about 10 seconds.

"And once I had it, I had no idea what to do with it," Olivia said. "I mean, seriously, no idea at all. It made me sick just to think of it."

"Because of what your mother and brother did?"

"No. Well, kind of that too, but mostly because now I knew what they were doing and I had to decide what I was going to do about it. And all of my options were lousy." She pauses to scratch her nose gingerly. "The first thing I thought was that I had to tell dad right away. That was the...'right' thing to do. But then I realized that if I did that, I'd be destroying the family and maybe sending mom and Mike to prison. Incest is illegal in Minnesota. What they were doing was wrong but I didn't want to see them in jail because of it. But even if dad didn't go to the cops, he'd still get a divorce and probably never want to see Mike or mom again. And he'd be shattered, and it would be because I told him."

She pauses as if considering something, then reluctantly adds, "And just from a point of view of pure self-interest, if word ever got out that mom mom and brother were having sex, I would never be able to show my face in school again. I had another year of high school and I cared an awful lot what other people thought of me. If people knew...well, I'd have dropped out of school. I couldn't have faced anybody who knew. Funny how that kind of thing gets less important when you get out on your own."

"So If not telling your father, then what?"

"I gave it a huge, endless, horrible amount of thought," Olvia sighs. "I mean I got no sleep that night, I just spent the whole time staring at my ceiling in the dark. I could only come up with two other reasonable courses of action, and they both sucked."

"What were they?"

"Well, the first was I could just do...nothing. You know, let it ride and hope it just faded away before dad or anyone else found out."

"Did that seem realistic?"

Olivia frowns. "No. I mean, I wanted it to be realistic because that would be the easiest thing for me personally. Like, by far the least agonizing. All I'd have to do is be quiet until they stopped and I would never, ever have to think of it again."

"But?"

"But they weren't going to stop. I mean, I was a kid and I knew they weren't gonna stop. They were..." She trails off in a sigh. The interviewer waits as the moment stretches out uncomfortably long, and then Olivia finally says, "Mike was going to be living at home for his first year in college because he was going to a college in the Twin Cities and there had been some kind of fuckup with his scholarship, like the room-and-board part of it. They didn't have a dorm room for him and we didn't have the money to get him his own apartment. If he had been planning to go to, like, USC or something, then maybe. It would have been another few weeks and then he'd split and there would be a mandatory cooling-off period between them. But with him still living under the same roof, it wasn't going to change." Another pause, then, "They were in love."

"You knew it was love and not just sex?"

"Well...I mean, you can't ever really know if two other people are in love, can you?" she shrugs. "But it looked that way to me. It looked really obvious, the way they were giving each other goo-goo eyes and finding excuses to be around each other when before Mike would have, like, gone to his bedroom to be on his phone and mom would have found a book to read. My mom giggled at his stupid jokes. She giggled. You know my mom; does she seem like a giggler to you? They weren't just after each other's bodies. I've never seen two people more in love."

"And if you had left it alone and it had come out?"

"Then it would be even worse than telling dad."

"So what did that leave?"

"I had to talk to them," Olivia says simply. "Or...well, no way I was talking to Mike about it. I had to talk to Mom. And if I was gonna rip off that particular bandaid, I needed to do it soon or never."

Next we see a white woman somewhere in the vicinity of 40 years of age who bears definite familial resemblance to Olivia. She has striking features: a square jaw, a pointed and cleft chin, high cheekbones, and large, expressive, deep brown eyes. Her mouth is generously wide and her lips are gorgeous, with lipliner a shade darker than her lipstick to accentuate their ideal shape. Her nose is perhaps the only thing about her face that isn't perfectly proportioned -- it is a bit too big and a bit too prominent. Her face is framed by a mane of unruly blonde locks that tumble just past her shoulders, and it is obvious that she seldom has good hair days. She is wearing a dark green blouse with a faint pattern on it that is obviously present but difficult for the camera to discern.

Below her face appears the legend Emily Larsen.

"Do you recall August 5th?" the interviewer asks.

"It is burned on my memory," Emily says dryly in a lovely, rich alto.

"What happened that day?"

"I went out shopping to replace Lou," she says, and we see a photograph of her looking perhaps 10 years younger standing next to the open door of a minivan. It was obviously chilly when the photo was taken, based on her jeans, jacket, and gloves, and the trees in the background are holding onto only a handful of dreary brown leaves. The photo has the legend, Emily's Chevrolet Lumina minivan, "Lou," was destroyed in an accident. "I wanted to get a jump on things to narrow down my choices before I took Bob shopping to help with the final decision."

Now we see a photo of a happy-looking, handsome man with dark brown hair and icy blue eyes, labeled Bob Larsen.

"Your husband didn't want to accompany you car shopping?"

Emily smiles fondly. "It's a long story and not particularly interesting. Suffice it to say that was how we had always done things."

"And after the car shopping?"

"I came home," Emily says."I had dropped Bob off in the morning so I had the car for the day. I walked into the kitchen and found my daughter sitting at the table with her hands clasped before her and a very...stern look on her face."

Back to Olivia, who looks slightly embarrassed. "So yeah, I had spent the entire night figuring how to approach this conversation. Because it's a conversation I really didn't want to have, but if I was gonna do it, I needed to do it right, right? So it had it all rehearsed in my head, like...like I was seeing it in a movie, seeing me having this conversation like I was an actor or something. What I'd say, what mom would say, what I'd say back. How I'd...scold her or whatever. How we'd both look during the conversation. I even...oh God, this is so stupid...I even dressed up for it."

"Dressed up?"

"Yeah, like in a...like a church blouse and a skirt and..." and here she covers her face and adds, "heels, high heels, like...like I was a parent in a cheesy family TV movie. Oh man, it hurts to remember, so embarrassing. I had the top button buttoned and everything."

"She was dressed...unusually, for her," Emily says. "Especially during summer, if she wasn't wearing her work uniform or lacrosse outfit, she was wearing tee shirts or a bikini or something else light and exhibitionistic. And she never wore the...formal sort of clothes she had on then if she could possibly help it."

"What did you think?" the interviewer asks.

"For an instant I was taken aback," Emily says, "and then I began to think she was in very bad trouble."

"So when she walks in," Olivia says, "I give her this stare and I say, 'Sit down, mother. We need to talk.' Just like that, all deadpan and hardass. And then she flips out."

"Oh, the terrible things I thought at that moment!" Emily says as we see her again. "I sat down and took her hands in mine and began assaulting her with questions."

"Like what?" the interviewer asks.

"Whether she was alright, whether she was hurt," Emily says.

Cut to Olivia, who says, "If I was in trouble with the police..."

Back to Emily. "If one of her friends had been hurt or killed..."

"Whether I was pregnant," Olivia laughs. "She asked if I was pregnant! Now I had expected her to be all meek and fake-innocent, like the teenagers in the shows when their parents confront them about drugs or whatever, but she was barely letting me get a word in edgewise, all 'We love you,' and 'You can tell us anything.' And she just kept asking these questions, like whether I had stolen something, if I had broken something expensive, and it was all I could do to keep saying no, no, no!"

"I had to a large extent stopped being a mother to my son when I became his woman," Emily reflects. "It is difficult to be the parent in the relationship when you are becoming more and more submissive to your child, as I was becoming with Mike. But I was still very much a mother to Olivia, and my maternal instincts for undue alarm were wholly and impressively intact. In fact, I may even have overcompensated somewhat."

"So I had lost control of the situation," Olivia chuckles ruefully, "and in record time, too. She was hitting me with all these questions and assurances and I didn't even know what end was up, and then all of a sudden I just blurt out, 'I know about you and Mike.'"

Back to Emily, who looks somewhat uncomfortable. "I was raining my maternal love and concern down upon Olivia when she suddenly shouted, 'Mother, I know what you and Mike are doing."

"She shouted it?"

Emily nods. "Rather loudly. And, as the saying goes, that shut me up."

"So mom just, like, freezes," Olivia recalls. "Mouth open, middle of a sentence she never finished, like pressing pause on a Blu-ray. And for a long, long second she just looked at me with, I don't know, confusion or denial or something. And then aaaaaaall the blood drained out of her face. Her face went through white to gray, like the color of a corpse."

"What were you thinking at that moment?" the interviewer asks Emily.

"Nothing that I can recall," Emily replies. "All I can remember is a feeling like vertigo, of the world spinning away from me. Everything seemed very remote. It felt like I might faint."

"That lasted for a few seconds," Olivia tells us. "Seemed longer. Then she shut her mouth so hard her teeth clacked together, like in a cartoon or something. It made my teeth hurt. And then came the denials, the 'I don't know what you mean.' I was like, are you really gonna make me say it out loud?"

"I knew immediately that Olivia knew the truth," Emily muses. "I suppose I knew deep down that Mike and I must eventually be found out. We had taken so many chances when we might have been caught that eventually one of those chances was going to come to fruition. But to be confronted with it was...terrifying."

"What did you think might happen?" the interviewer asks.

"Logically, of course, I knew that things could get very dire indeed," Emily said. "There existed the very real possibility of prison time. At the very least I assumed I would lose my marriage, but scandal, loss of career, loss of friends and associates, public humiliation, I knew all of those things were potential consequences. And in spite of all of that, in the moment, all I could think about was Mike."

"In what way?"

"All of those dangers applied equally to him," she tells us. "In addition, he faced the loss of his entire future, just as he was starting out in life. His college would surely drop him and his prospects would be shattered. And...and I might lose him."

"As a son?"

"No...no, not as a son," Emily says slowly. "As I said before, part of the mother-son bond was lost when we became lovers. That was inevitable. But the part that remained could never fray, never be lost no matter what. Even if we never saw each other again, that part of the bond we shared would never disappear.

"Rather, what I feared was losing him as a man, as a lover. I thought of losing whatever future we might have together. And so, even though I knew immediately that it was no use, I still tried to lie."

"Yeah," Olivia says dryly. "No worse liar in the whole world. So when she was all, 'I don't know what you're referring to,' I explained that I knew she was having sex with Mike."

"Oh, hearing it said by someone else, especially by my darling baby girl," Emily sighs miserably. "I thought I might die. And still I denied it."

"So we go back and forth a bunch of times," Olivia tells us. "I just wanted her to admit it but she wouldn't. I told her I saw them and she was all, 'I don't know what you think you saw, but...' So finally I brought out my phone and played the video for her. That did it."

We see Emily looking slightly shaken. She is not looking at the camera, but rather at some point down and to the left, She is silent, but after two seconds she opens her mouth, only to shut it again before speaking. Several more seconds pass before she finally says, quietly, "Since these interviews started, I have been dreading this moment -- discussing this moment, I mean. Even now, years later and after everything that has happened, it is still...uncomfortable to think about. Acutely so."

"Why?" the interviewer asks.

Another pause, then, "The shattering of a fool's paradise is always miserable. Up until that moment I could avoid thinking about the...wider ramifications of the actions Mike and I were taking under the delusion...no, the lie that it only affected the two of us, that we were hurting no one else and it was no one else's business. As Mike later said, love makes you stupid, and Mike and I were madly in love with each other. That had made us very stupid."

Back to Olivia. "I thought I'd been ready for whatever reaction mom would give me. I'd rehearsed it all in my head, right? But when I hit play on that video, she just..." Olivia sighs and shakes her head slightly. "She just...imploded. Have you ever seen someone you love more than you can say just crumple and collapse into themselves? Well I have, and it is fucking awful."

"And then?" the interviewer asks.

"After a few seconds I turned it off. She didn't ask me to, I just couldn't take seeing what it was doing to her. I never wanted to hurt her -- Mike either! I just wanted to make them see what they were doing and knock it off before it hurt everybody...especially me, honestly. So we just sat there. I was hoping she would take the lead and say something, like an explanation, but she didn't. She just kept staring at my phone. I don't think it was more than 15 seconds before I talked, but it was the longest 15 seconds of my life...up to then, anyway."

"And what did you say?"

"I asked her why, and then she told me."

"I told her everything," Emily says. "Not the...mechanical details between Mike and I, of course. No, I told her about what had happened with the accident and with the bikers, and how Mike and I had tried to control ourselves and how it had never worked because we had found something perfect, and about how we had finally just given in and fallen in love with each other."

"All of that?" the interviewer asks.

"It was not a monologue," Emily says. "We spoke for almost an hour and a half. She asked many questions, and I answered every one of them to the best of my ability. Once I admitted the truth, I felt...compelled to tell all. It felt...not good, precisely, but it was a great relief to tell someone about what had happened during the previous six weeks. I hadn't realized how much I had needed to speak to someone about it. Keeping a secret is a terrible burden."

We return to Olivia, who blows air upward from pursed lips so that a lock of her blaze-red hair bounces. "Well shit, that was a hell of a conversation."

"What did you think?" asks the interviewer.

"I thought...Christ, I thought everything under the sun at some point. It was a lot to take in. I felt just awful for her and Mike, because...look, I have tried many times to put myself in their places, hers and Mike's. What if it had been me and Mike instead? What if it had been me and dad? Or hell, me and mom? What if it was me and a child I had made? I don't have kids so I can't even imagine what it feels like to love someone that utterly, much less how it would feel to be forced to fuck that kid to save our lives. But if I had been put into that position and then found out that Mike or dad or mom or my kid was my soulmate? That we were perfectly compatible and the sex was so good it broke my fucking brain? How the hell could I deal with that? What kind of stupid shit would I do in that situation?"

"Did you come to any conclusions?"

"Fuck no. I was a dumbass high school kid, what did I know? I just...I understood how things had started and how they had gotten so...out of control, I guess. Because by the time that talk was done, I knew it was not in mom's control and not in Mike's control."

We come back to Emily, who says, "At the end of the conversation, Olivia asked me if Mike and I were going to stop. I thought about it for a moment and then told her that we had tried to stop twice before, at the beginning, and it had nearly driven us both mad. Now, after everything, after...after falling in love, Mike and I would not be capable of stopping."

We return to Olivia, who tells us, "And I got where they were coming from...I mean, the part about not being able to just switch it off. Or...no, I didn't get it, but I got it."

"Can you explain that?" the interviewer asks.

"OK, like...if right after the biker gang thing they had come clean about what had happened, things might have been different. I don't mean it would have been easy. They'd have probably had to have years of therapy and it would have been miserable and traumatic, but they could have stopped their sexual relationship. But they didn't go to a therapist, and I completely understand why they didn't, because I doubt I would have either if I had been in their shoes because how the hell do you have that conversation with a stranger? So then they do it again, and then there's two things they haven't dealt with. And then there's three things, and then there's a whole bunch of things. It's like an avalanche, right? Take a snowball and drop it at the top of a hill and it starts rolling, and if you act quick you can stop it. But each thing they did added a layer added to the snowball. You add enough layers to that snowball and it's not even a snowball anymore, it's a force of nature. And it just rolls on until it runs over something...or someone. Listening to mom, the way she spoke about it, the intensity of it, I knew they were at the 'force of nature' stage."

"So what did you say then?"

Olivia sighs. "I just told her to be careful."

"Did you mean she ought to use birth control?"

"Oh no!" Olivia laughs, waving her hands in front of her. "No no no, Christ no. It didn't even occur to me that they would be fucking like rabbits and using nothing. I mean, that's what a mother tells a teenager, not the other way around. I just meant 'Be careful' in the 'Please don't get caught and blow the family up and bring shame and ruination down on us all.' sense."

"I took it in the sense it was intended," Emily says, "and not in the prophylactic sense. If I had, things might perhaps have turned out very differently."

"Ooohhhhhh GOD," Olivia says as we return to her. "God, how I wished I had just left well enough alone and never taken that fucking video! I just...wolf by the fucking ears, dude!"

"You had no plan?"

"Big picture? No. Small picture, I needed to get away from it for a while. Away from the family and the house and everything. I told my mom I was going to stay at my friend Penny's place. She and her family were out of town but I knew where they kept their spare key and I knew where their liquor cabinet was. I was an extreme lightweight then, but fuck it. I didn't get plowed, I got plowed under. I just didn't want to think about anything that night, not after that. I woke up the next day on their kitchen floor in a puddle of my own vomit and with the worst headache I have ever had before or since."

"Did that help you reach any conclusions?"

Olivia smirks. "You go looking for clarity at the bottom of a tequila bottle and all you find is a worm."

The screen switches to a young man in his 20s who appears to have an admixture of Emily and Bob's features, with Emily's general facial structure but Bob's hair and eyes; the effect is quite striking. The name Mike Larsen appears beneath his face.

"I had a landscaping job that summer, and I was working on a terrace in a big yard when mom called," Mike tells us. "I knew right away something had happened just from the tone of her voice. She sounded kind of frantic. She wouldn't tell me anything on the phone, but she said she was going to come pick me up from work and take me to dinner because we needed to talk."

"What did you think then?"

"Nothing good! Mike laughed. "I had all sorts of things running through my head, like people hurt or dead, or like dad demanding a divorce out of the blue, or the house burning down." He laughs. "I had this one really odd, really specific vision in my head of someone coming into my dad's office and shooting him in the leg. The left leg, right below the knee. No idea why I thought that."

"Nothing about her and you?"

"I...um...well,"Mike says, blushing a bit. "I thought she might be pregnant. But then I did the math from her last period and realized that she couldn't be."

"How did that make you feel?"

'Relieved, mostly."

"Mostly?"

"There was a part of me that was disappointed," he admits. "Just a little part. But for the few seconds when I thought she might be, I realized...I realized how much I loved her. She's so beautiful in every way, she's such an amazing mother. I realized we'd make really beautiful babies together. But then the thought disappeared and I didn't think of it again for a while."

"Was that the first time you'd thought about that?"

"Yeah, first time. Not the last, obviously."

"While I felt relief in unburdening myself of the secret during the conversation with Olivia," Emily tells us when we see her again, "shortly thereafter panic set in again. It was, I suppose, a reaction to the threat I was feeling toward the most important relationship in my life. I am normally a very careful driver. That day was so shaken I nearly caused several accidents on the way to pick Mike up."

"When mom pulled up to the curb and I opened the door," Mike says, "I took one look at her and said I was driving. Because she looked insane. That was the first time I ever told her anything like that."

"That she looked insane?"

Mike laughs sharply. "No, that I was driving! You know, she raised me from the time she gave birth to me. There were some things she had always done, or, you know, taken the lead on, because she's my mom. We could never afford a car for me because they didn't have money for that and every penny I made was put aside for college expenses. And most of that time she'd driven Lou, and nobody drove Lou but her. So I had never demanded to drive when it was her and me in the car. But I did that day."

"And?"

"And she slid over without a second thought and gave me the wheel," he says. It is obviously a fond memory for him. "For some reason that sticks out in my memory as being really sexy."

"I do not recall that," Emily tells us with a shrug. "Mike is a very commanding presence, very strong and assertive. I think by that point, that fact was already having its effect upon me. I was beginning to defer to him in small ways and letting him take command in a manner I never permitted his father to do. Not that Bob ever tried."

"So it wasn't something you noticed?" the interviewer asks.

"Not until later, when it had gone farther," Emily says. "The process was very natural, and one I think I must have enjoyed very much on a subconscious level."

"And when he had gotten behind the wheel?"

"I gave him exactly enough time to buckle his seat belt before telling him that we had been discovered."

"So I just get the door closed and mom's like, 'OLIVIAKNOWSABOUTUSSHESAWUSSHEHASAVIDEO!!'" Mike says. "She was talking so fast -- and what she was saying was so shocking -- that I had to make her take some deep breaths and tell me again slower. And then I was like, 'Well, fuck.'"

"It must have come as a shock."

"Well yeah, sure, but...like after a few seconds of sitting there, I was like, of course someone found out. Of course someone would. It wasn't like we'd been, what's the word, circumspect? We'd been fucking several times a day in a house where two other people lived, and more and more with those people in the house at the time. The thought I remember having was, well, at least it wasn't dad."

"Mike took it better than I did," Emily admits.

"When I could get mom calm enough to tell me the details, she explained the conversation with Olivia, the video on her phone, all that," Mike says. "And I was like, well? Well? What's she gonna do? Is she telling dad? Is she telling her blabbermouth friends? Is this the end of everything? And mom was like, oh, she told us to be cautious and not get found out by anyone else. And I was like...yeah, that ain't the end of this from Olivia."

"You expected more?" the interviewer asks.

"Olivia and I hadn't exactly gotten along since we hit our teens. I wasn't surprised that she didn't want to destroy me and mom -- it's not like we were blood enemies or anything. It's just I expected her to use this information to get stuff out of mom and to make me miserable as hell. And I was not disappointed."

"What then?"

"I drove ten minutes to a park. We got out, walked to a bench where nobody else was around, put my arm around her to pull her close, and started to talk. I made her tell me everything again from the beginning, slower this time, and I asked a lot of questions. I got a better sense of what was going on. And I decided things weren't that bad. Before we'd had to hide what we were doing from two people in the house, but now we only had to hide it from one. Just from a practical standpoint it made things a lot easier."

"That was a view of things I had not taken before Mike pointed it out to me," Emily tells us. "But of course he was right, insofar as his thinking went. It wasn't as though we could flaunt it in Olivia's face, of course, but not having to conceal things from her made it simpler logistically and emotionally. The emotional piece was especially important. I never intended to have another conversation about it with her, but knowing that someone I love dearly knew about Mike and I being in love and being lovers became a precious gift."

"Even though she didn't approve?" the interviewer asks.

"She didn't condemn," Emily explains. "And she had listened to how the love Mike and I shared had begun and become what it was, and she was making an effort to understand how we felt and why. That was the most we could ever have asked of her. The price she extracted as time went on was reasonable for that."

We return to Mike, and we hear the interviewer ask, "Did you really think Olivia knowing was a good thing?"

"I did then," Mike shrugs. "Chalk it up to being young and inexperienced. And love not being great for clear thought. When you're head-over-heels in love, you engage in a lot of wishful thinking."

Emily again, as the interviewer asks, "After you talked to Mike for a while, how were you feeling?"

"I had been frantic during the drive over, but Mike was so calm and rational that it made me feel better just being next to him. Alone, I felt overwhelmed, but by his side I felt as though we could manage whatever came our way. That fact alone, simply being with a man who made me feel as though we never had anything to fear, was thrilling and exciting."

"Your husband never gave you that sense?" the interviewer asks.

Emily considers for a moment, then says, "It's more complicated than that. Bob is a wonderful man and he is very strong in his own way. He always wanted the very best for me, and he always wanted me to become the very best I could in whatever I chose to do. He pushed me to excel as a dancer, not in the hectoring manner of a teacher or mentor but in the loving and supportive manner of a partner; being the best dancer I could be was important to me, and he was always there to remind me never to let myself down. Whenever I had a hobby, such as cooking or painting, Bob always made sure I had the room and support to explore it fully and reach my potential. The value of that should never be underestimated."

"...but?"

"But Bob simply could never be the unshakable center for a woman in the way Mike is by nature. When there were crises, Bob and I had always met them together, but it had always been me in the lead. This was the first crisis Mike and I had faced since becoming a couple, and he took charge because it's the kind of man he is. Until that moment, I had never known how much I longed for that in a partner. I had spent my adult life caring for others, and now I had someone who would care for me, someone whom I could rely upon to be strong enough that I could be a little weak from time to time." Her eyes twinkle and her cheeks get a shade pinker. "It's rather arousing. It certainly was that afternoon."

Back to Mike, who sports a faint grin. "We talked for a while and I got mom calmed down. She was snuggled up to me in a way that dad wouldn't have liked, but we were on the other side of town from our neighborhood. Nobody knew us here. Anybody seeing us would just see boyfriend and girlfriend, which I loved the thought of. But what kind of surprised me was how she kept...smelling me."

"Smelling you?" the interviewer asks.

"Yeah. I'd been working my ass off all day long on a warm summer day. I had sweated through all my clothes."

"Honest sweat is one of the most erotic smells in the world," Emily says with mischievous grin as we see her again. "Perhaps it comes from being a dancer, but I love the smell of a man's sweat. Not body odor, but a good day's sweat from a good day's work. It makes the man's own scent come forward, free of soaps and body washes and colognes and anything else, and I have always found that a wonderful thing." She pauses, her grin getting a little naughtier, and adds, "Especially Mike's scent."

"By the time we'd talked things through and we were both calmed down, I could tell mom was getting frisky as hell," Mike grins. "She was wrapping herself around me on the bench, like real PDA stuff, and her nipples were getting hard. If I'd have known being sweaty could get that kind of reaction..."

"It wasn't only his scent, of course," Emily says. "It was mostly a reaction to being discovered. That was a stressful event, and for a while I had thought Olivia would expose us. Even after I learned that she wouldn't, I had another panic attack about how close we had come to being ended. It reminded me that I might lose my man, the only lover who has ever completed me. I believe it was a natural biological impulse to...re-stake my claim."

"It was when she dropped her hand into my lap and started rubbing me in front of God and everybody I realized mom wasn't just snuggling to be snuggly," Mike tells us. "She was horny and getting hornier fast. We hadn't had a chance to be together yet that day and so we were both hot for each other, but the way she was going at me was surprising even for her. I started to say something, but I ended up kissing her instead."

Emily is beginning to flush in that familiar way that indicates she is discussing a particularly exciting memory. "Mike started to tell me something, I think to calm me down, but I did not want to be calm. I wanted him, and I wanted him very, very badly. I grabbed his face and kissed him hard. For the first time I kissed him that way in public."

"And then we were making out on the park bench," Mike says. "And yeah it wasn't our neighborhood and yeah there was nobody right close by, but there were plenty of people around to see, and I know some of them watched. Mom climbed onto my lap and straddled me and we started kissing hard, tongues wrapping around each other, spit making a mess of our faces. She was holding my ears to keep my face where she wanted it and I was holding her ass to keep her on my lap. All of a sudden I was at full mast and she was grinding against me in those flimsy little shorts she was wearing. It was broad daylight and she was dry humping me in public and she did not seem inclined to stop."

"Are you an exhibitionist?" the interviewer asks as we see Emily again.

Emily's salacious grin is answer enough, but she says, "I have that side to me. When I was in high school and college, before Bob, I enjoyed doing things where and when I might get caught. I hadn't had a chance to let that side of me show in nearly 19 years. I had almost forgotten it existed at all. But that day, it came roaring back."

"It didn't take long for me to realize that Mom was building up a real head of steam," Mike chuckles. "If we didn't get out of there fast, the cops were gonna show. So I grabbed her and we ran off to the car, me driving."

"Of course," Emily grins wickedly, "that gave me a chance to do something else I loved but hadn't done since before Bob."

"It never even occurred to me that mom would do that," Mike says happily, "but we weren't a block away from the park before she said, 'Keep your eyes on the road, lover," and leaned over with her head in my lap. It was such a wild idea coming from her that I didn't even realize what she was doing until she started hauling my cock out."

"What did you do?" the interviewer asks.

"I was about to get road noggin from my gorgeous mother who I was absolutely head over heels in love with," he laughs. "I shut up and let her suck my cock like a good girl."

Emily's face is crimsoning. "Allll the way down and allll the way back up," she purrs. "I adore feeling Mike's cock in my throat at any time, but this was particularly special. I know this was something men fantasize about, and I was able to give it to my perfect lover. I was going to take his cum in public. I couldn't have been prouder."

"Mom always sucks my cock like she's starving," Mike tells us, "but she was going after it. It was like a vacuum cleaner, and her tongue was doing a fucking tango on my shaft. Treatment like that, in this situation, no way I was going to last long."

"I didn't want him to last long," Emily says with a predatory smile that makes her look alarmingly feral and which makes her sudden lapse into graphic obscenity seem natural and inevitable. "I wanted to suck his balls through the end of his dick. I wanted him to lose his mind. I wanted him to come harder for me than he had ever come for anyone, for any of his silly girlfriends. I wanted to remind him who his cock belonged to."

"I didn't even know where I was driving," Mike laughs. "I was in another world. I didn't realize we had an audience until we were sitting at a light and the guys in the SUV next to us started hooting and honking the horn. I'm sure all they could see was mom's head bobbing up and down and me with an idiot grin. Mom didn't even break pace -- it was that that made me shoot off in her mouth."

"I make it a point of pride to swallow every drop of cum Mike places in my mouth," Emily smiles, "but my road head technique was rusty so some ran onto my hand. I sat up and Mike looked at me as I licked my hand clean."

"Fuuuuuck," Mike sighs. "It was like she was a big, sexy cat licking her paws and giving me the hottest look I have ever seen. After a second she was like, 'Did someone see?' and I said yeah, and her smile got even sexier and she said, 'Good.'"

"A woman is made to please her man," Emily coos, "just as a man is made to please his woman. Being seen just meant someone knew I was doing my duty to my lover."

"And that's why you're an exhibitionist," the interviewer says.

Emily nods happily. "And that's why I'm an exhibitionist."

Back to Mike. "That was Round One, but the way mom was acting, I didn't even get soft. At that time of day, rush hour, it would have been an hour at least to get home, but neither of us was going to wait that long -- and besides, Dad would be home before we got there. I remembered seeing a crappy little motel a few blocks away along the highway. That was where we went."

"Money was perpetually an issue," Emily recalls, "so even a cheap motel was an expense I normally would have frowned on. This time, though...well, it was as good as any money I have ever spent! We parked and raced up to the office, rented a room for cash, and pawed each other all the way to the door. He had me half undressed by the time we got there!"

"I remember I had her shorts unzipped," Mike laughs, "but she had her hand down mine right there in the parking lot, so we were even."

"The room was so tacky!" Emily says in a disapproving tone, but with a twinkle in her eye that makes it seem as though she might not find the memory displeasing. "The walls were dirty, there was an odd smell, the bedspread was tattered and stained..."

"Pretty sure if we'd have had a UV light, the place would have lit up like the Milky Way," Mike chuckled. "But who cares, we were there to add to the stains. I put her up against the inside of the door and started pulling her clothes off."

"Oh, we were in a hurry!" Emily smiles hungrily. "I needed him against me, inside me, and I needed it immediately! There was no foreplay, no slow touching. I was begging him like a slut before the door even closed."

"I yanked her shorts down her legs and crouched down in front of her," Mike tells us, a wolfish gleam in his eye. "I had my mouth on her pussy before I even started pulling her legs up onto my shoulders."

"I understood what he wanted instantly," Emily purrs. "I put one leg and then the other over his shoulders so I was sitting on him with my pussy directly against his mouth and he devoured me. He devoured me."

"God she tastes so fucking good, and she was running like a faucet," Mike recalls. "She was as wet as I've ever seen her, and I wanted every drop. I pushed my tongue and lips against her and went nuts."

Emily's cheeks are bright red and her eyes are wide; somehow, though she was likely moving almost not at all when this was filmed, her hair has become disarrayed and she looks a bit unhinged, as she always does when discussing her sexual encounters. "I began to come the moment his tongue found my clit, and I began to scream. I knew the walls of the place were paper thin, and I knew anyone in the next rooms or in the parking lot could hear every word I said, but I wanted them to hear. I wanted them to hear my moans, my pleading, every word of filth that came out of my mouth. I wanted them to hear my orgasm and be jealous."

"Mom swears up a storm during sex," Mike reminds us, "she can't help it. And she was especially creative that day. 'Suck my cunt you big-dick motherfucker! Make me come on your face!' All that."

"I don't know how many orgasms Mike gave me that way," Emily says, licking her lips. "Perhaps it was just one, but it went on and on with peaks and valleys, wave after wave. He had me suspended in the air and all I could do was sit there and come and come and come, as long as my strong young lover could hold me up that way. I never wanted it to end."

"Eventually my jaw got sore and my back started to cramp," Mike laughs, "so I tossed her onto the bed."

"Oh!" Emily gasps. "He threw me across the room! Like I weighed nothing, like I was his toy, he simply hurled me onto the bed because that was where he wanted me. He gave me no choice in the matter!"

"And you liked that?" the interviewer asked

Emily's eyes shine devilishly. "What woman doesn't want a man who can manhandle her?"

"Did doing it in a dirty motel room detract from the experience?"

"Oh no, no no! It made it so much better! Knowing it was in a seedy establishment meant primarily for illicit encounters made it all the naughtier and more intense! I remember wondering what had occurred on that bed, what sordid trysts, what magnificent perversions. It thrilled me to be adding another to the list! Oh my!"

"I swarmed on top of her," Mike informs us. "I didn't even get my pants off, just down to my thighs before I was inside her. And I didn't take it easy, I hammered her like a plank, balls slapping her ass and her squealing every time I bottomed out."

"Mike took me savagely," Emily says, obviously relishing the memory. "He fucked me so hard and so fast that I thought the bed would break. It was squeaking and protesting and making all sorts of noises, and he punished my poor little pussy so hard that he drove me right across the bed until I was up against the headboard and the headboard was slamming against the wall with every thrust!"

"Somewhere in there mom started calling herself a whore -- 'fuck your whore, your dirty little whore,' that kind of thing," Mike says. "I think she was getting off on the location, like how many times guys had fucked prostitutes on that bed...maybe since the bedspread had been changed last, who knows, the place was nasty. Anyway, she was into it, so I started calling her a whore too."

Emily's nostrils flare. "When Mike began calling me a whore, telling me I was his filthy hired slut to do with as he pleased...my God! I almost came just from that!"

"Why was that a turn-on for you?" the interviewer asks.

Emily laughs; when she is sexually excited, her laughs have sharper corners than otherwise, almost like barks. "Every girl has fantasized about being a prostitute -- being so free with your sexuality, so in control, yet also so compliant and submissive to whatever man you're with at the moment. Of course I wouldn't want to be a prostitute really, but playing one with my lover in a dive of a motel was a marvelous little diversion -- and it made me come very hard!"

"Neither of us lasted long," Mike tells us. "The pressure was just too much. The way she was talking, the way she was moaning, the sounds of fucking and the bed coming apart. And you know what I remember really vividly is the smell. The smell of her arousal over the musty disinfectant smell of the room. That's sharp in my mind and it's really hot for some reason. Just smelling bleach can take me right back there! Anyway, I wanted to keep up the whore roleplay and come on her face, but when I tried to pull out she locked her legs around me and said, 'Come inside my whore pussy!' so...I came inside her whore pussy. I'm not an idiot."

"When Mike came inside me," Emily tells us, "I knew immediately that once was not enough for either of us that day. We both needed more. And I enjoyed the roleplay we were engaging in..."

"Was this the first time you'd roleplayed?" the interviewer asks.

"Roleplay was never something I bothered with -- I tried it once or twice in college and I always felt it to be unnecessary. But I had never done it with Mike -- it had never occurred to me. This time, though, was so natural for both of us -- we didn't discuss it, we simply slipped into it as though it were something we had done a hundred times. I loved it. I wanted to continue."

We return to Mike who says, "So we're laying on the bed panting and sweating, and I'm still at about half-mast, when mom looks at me and says, 'I hope you got your money's worth from me...sir.' And ho. Ly. Fuck."

"What did you say?"

"I told her a good whore cleans her john's cock after a fuck."

Emily looks as though she might swoon. "I loved it! It thrilled me that he wanted to continue playing. I simply said, 'Yes, sir," and moved down to suck his cock. I had just done it in the car but when it's what we make together, it's so much...tastier! It was converted in my juices and his, and us together is my favorite flavor in the world. I licked it clean, sucked the last few drops of cum out of him, and then began to suck his balls. He was hard again in a flash!"

"I was feeling it," Mike laughs, "and I was loving the roleplay -- well, I was loving her reactions to it, more than the roleplay itself. So I asked her if she thought I really wanted to look at the face of the cheap skank I hired when I fucked her."

Emily giggles, in spite of the fact that her giggling when not sexually aroused is inconceivable. "'Hey whore, you think I wanna look a hooker in the face when I fuck her?' she growls in a deep voice that is just barely recognizable as an impression of Mike. "My heart leaped! I was thrilled!"

Back to Mike. "She dropped her eyes, real meek, and said, 'No, sir.' Then she stood up, bent over, and put her hands on the bed with her ass in the air. And...well, she's a dancer, you know? She could crush a tin can between those ass cheeks. I didn't miss a second before I was right up behind her."

"Mike was not a gentle lover that day," Emily sighs happily. "He grabbed my hips and slammed into me so hard I nearly lost balance. He was so rough, so forceful. He yanked my hair, called me slut and bitch and whore and every other name he could think of, he spanked me so hard!"

"I love swatting that ass," Mike chuckles as we see him again. "It's so firm it almost swats you back. Watching it bounce as she backed herself up onto me was fantastic. And she was so wild that day, so crazy. I know it had something to do with her conversation with Olivia, like it had thrown the fear of God into her and she needed to grab onto me again, and I understood that because I felt the same way even though I wasn't the one who Olivia had decided to talk to." He pauses, then adds, "Olivia made the right choice there. A conversation between her and me on that topic wouldn't have gone well."

'I was still very sensitive from my earlier orgasms," Emily tells us, "so the sensations were quite overwhelming. After the first few seconds I couldn't talk at all -- which is odd for me during sex! -- and all I could do was move with my beautiful lover and let him use me " Her grin gets wickeder as she adds, "And he used the fuck out of me."

"I lasted longer that time," Mike says. "I was on my third go-sound in less than an hour, so I had stamina to spare. I knew mom was reaching the point where everything feels good, because when she has my dick inside her and she's not swearing up a storm, I know she's pushing her limits. I yanked her upright by her hair and kept fucking her while I slipped a hand down her front and started fingering her clit."

"FUCK that sent me right over again!" Emily enthuses, her face so red it's almost purple. "I came so hard I don't even remember the next couple of minutes. I came to lying face down on the bed, Mike on top of me and still inside, still fucking me as though I hadn't just passed out. My whole body was tingling from head to foot, the way it feels when your leg has fallen asleep and it just starts to get feeling back." She sighs and adds, "My son fucked me so well he made my nervous system short-circuit."

"Yeah, that was...fucking crazy," My chuckles. "She came again after that, before I did. I think she was so tender it wasn't taking much to get her up and over again. She was just lying on the bed and moaning while I took her from behind. She was so dazed that she didn't even beg for my cum the way she always does when I'm close. I just came inside her again and collapsed with her."

Emily looks dizzy, and her eyes are slightly unfocused as she tells us, "I love Mike very much. It took me fifteen minutes before I could even move."

"And we were across the Cities from home during rush hour and dad was due home any minute," Mike informs us. "So when she can move again, mom goes and gets her phone and starts texting him she had to come pick me up and we'd gotten a flat and he should go ahead and eat without us...and I was like...huh..."

"Huh what?" the interviewer asks.

"I was in a shitty hotel room with my naked mom. She had two loads of my cum running down her legs and one more in her stomach, and she was texting my dad, her husband, about dinner. I just...it felt weird. It was one of the first times it really felt like what we were doing was an affair. Like an illicit thing."

"After everything you'd done, that was just then occurring to you?"

"Yeah. You gotta understand, mom and I had been through stages of this. Anybody who's watched this far knows about that. As things developed, the fact that we were so into each other meant that all we could think about was what we were doing. It was like we didn't have room in our heads for dad and Olivia. I know I didn't. But Olivia talking to mom was a wakeup call. Someone else knew now. My sister, mom's daughter, knew. And now here mom was lying to dad about why we wouldn't be home. It was a reality check."

Back to Emily, who looks to have calmed down considerably. "I don't suppose the duplicity occurred to me in the moment. I was simply concerned with making sure Bob wouldn't worry and wonder. Mike was, I think, more thoughtful about things than I was at that stage."

"At least she was lying over text," Mike reflects. "Dad actually bought what she told him. If she'd have tried to tell him person he probably would have guessed I was banging her right away."

"We stopped for Greek food on the way home," Emily says. "I reeked of sex, so I contrived to spill tzatziki down my front to cover the scent, and to give me an excuse to shower as soon as I got in the door."

"We didn't get home until almost 7:30, and I ran straight upstairs," Mike says. "For the first time in a long time, I felt weird about facing my dad after I had sex with mom. I guess I was thinking too much."

We now see Bob for the first time, looking several years older than the photo we'd previously been shown. "I remember the flat tire. It didn't occur to me to doubt it."

The interviewer asks, "Did you have any idea yet about Emily and Mike?"

Bob shakes his head. "Nope. I had certainly noticed the changes in Emily over the past few weeks, though. She had always worn baggy shirts because she was always self-conscious about her breasts, but she'd bought a bunch of new ones that were as tight as what Olivia was wearing. Her old underwear had been relegated to a box in the closet and she was wearing much sexier things now. She was using more makeup, even around the house. She always looked happy and bouncy. I knew I didn't have anything to do with those changes. I was starting to wonder if maybe she had something going on."

"You were suspecting she was cheating?"

"Suspicion is too strong. It had occurred to me to wonder. But then her habits hadn't changed. She wasn't sneaking out or making excuses not to be around. There were no weird calls or texts on her phone or the house phone. It was summer so she had more time off from her teaching position at the University, so I thought maybe there was something going on during the day when I was at work, but there was no physical evidence. She was just happier with herself and in general."

"What did you think of that?"

Bob shrugs. "I didn't, much. I had the thought, I dismissed the thought. We had been together a long time. When people reach a certain age they start making changes to help them feel younger. Maybe they dress differently, maybe they use makeup. I was going to need proof to think it was anything more than that."

"What about with Mike? Did you notice any changes with him?"

"Well yeah, kind of, but they weren't suspicious changes. He was just spending a lot more time with his mother. He had always been a normal teenage boy, and hanging around their parents isn't a thing they like to do. And during and after the California trip when all this started, there had been so much tension and stress between them that their getting along great was still a very welcome change. And if he wanted to go down the basement and help her with the laundry, it was none of my business."

"Except in the basement they were --"

"They were fucking," Bob cuts her off. "Yeah, I know that now. I didn't know it then. And why would I think they were? Why would that be where my mind went?"

The screen goes dark and we see white letters appear:

August 6 - August 27

We return to Olivia. "I came back the next day, like midmorning. I was hung over as hell and all I wanted to do was lie down in my own bed and close my eyes forever. I opened the back door and immediately I heard it."

"Heard what?" the interviewer asks.

"Sex. I heard Mike and mom having sex in the living room. I could hear the sounds, and mom...mom's not quiet when she's excited. So I heard that. And less than 24 hours after I talked to her. I just turned around and walked out again."

"What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that I couldn't wait until I graduated high school so I could move the fuck out."

"We did try to be careful," Emily tells us. "We never flaunted it before Olivia. We never did anything at a time and place where we thought it was at all likely that she might find us."

Over to Mike. "There was a weird psychological thing going on. Mom and I had been caught but not exposed. We had someone volunteering to keep our secret. Neither of us thought of it in those terms exactly, but I think there was this subconscious...relaxation. On some level there was a belief that we didn't need to worry about Olivia finding us anymore -- whatever she saw or heard or knew, we'd be OK. So we took chances we wouldn't have taken before

"And there was something else, too," he continues. "Olivia's talk with mom had been a threat. It wasn't threatening, but it was a threat. A threat to me and mom, to what we had. Our love, our relationship. Subconsciously I think it made us go after it all the harder...and be all the stupider."

Olivia reappears. "I caught them again less than a week later. My shift at Arby's ended half an hour early and I had to go home to get my lacrosse gear. When I walked in I could hear them going at it upstairs. It was starting to piss me off."

"Why?" the interviewer asks.

"Because I knew about it, but I didn't want to deal with it. I didn't want to have to deal with it. I agreed to look the other way if they were careful, and now it was right in my face. I couldn't even pretend it wasn't happening. I had agreed to be a forgetful witness and now I was being made an accomplice. It's a completely different set of circumstances. It's a completely different level of complicity."

"We didn't know that Olivia had overheard us again," Emily says. "To this day, I think that was simply bad luck."

To Mike, who tells us, "I didn't even see Olivia for like three days after her talk with mom. When I did see her, she just put up her hand and said, 'Don't even,' and kept walking. So she wasn't happy with me. I don't know if she blamed me more than she blamed mom for what was going on. Probably."

Olivia again as the interviewer asks, "Did you blame one more than the other for what was happening?"

Olivia thinks for a moment, then shakes her head. "I don't think so. I guess I was readier to get mad at Mike because I liked mom more, and because mom's explanation was so...heartfelt. I wasn't even talking to Mike. Well, for the most part."

"The bill started coming due pretty quick after that," we see Mike say. "One evening I was upstairs on my phone when Olivia walks into my bedroom without knocking and tells me to give her twenty bucks so she could go out with friends that night."

"What did you do?" the interviewer asks.

"What could I do? I gave her twenty bucks."

"If I was going to be an accomplice, I was gonna get compensated," Olivia tells us. "No way I was doing it for free."

"Did you get money from your mother?" the interviewer asks.

"Mom had no money. And if she'd have gotten some from the bank and given it to me, dad would have noticed. He watched money like a miser, because we didn't have enough of it. If he'd have asked mom about it, well, mom can't lie."

"During summer, Olivia had an 11:00 PM curfew," Emily tells us. "It didn't take her long to inform me that she would be returning home whenever she wanted to, and it was up to me to smooth it over with Bob. Under the circumstances, I could only say yes. It seemed a minor concession."

"Yeah, that was weird," Bob tells us. "Emily had always been the stickler on the kids' curfews, and out of the blue she tells me she's relaxed it for Olivia. No discussion, no explanation. That was completely out of character for her."

"The demands kept on coming," Mike says. "I wasn't making much at my summer job but I was spending basically nothing to save everything for college expenses. Olivia started taking more and more. At first it was a twenty here, a ten there, but within a couple weeks she was demanding a hundred at a pop."

"What was your reaction?" the interviewer asks.

Mike shrugs. "Olivia has me by the balls. I mean, she was doing us a huge favor by not saying anything, so I did owe her. And if she had just said, 'Hey can we work out some compensation here?' I think I'd have been -- OK, not fine with it, but it would have grated a lot less than just demanding money. She barely even spoke to me other than that. It was just 'Give me money.'" He pauses significantly, then adds, "Well, until that one time."

"The next time I caught them was the time I lost my shit for real," Olivia tells us. "It was an evening in the middle of the week. I was in the dining room working on my lacrosse gear and dad was in the living room watching TV. Mom and Mike weren't around, so I figured they'd sneaked off upstairs to be together."

"Did that bother you?" the interviewer asks.

"Yeah, of course it did. They were doing it inside the house, with dad right there. All he needed to do was open one wrong door and the whole family explodes and there's scandal and I can't show my face at school. They were being reckless and irresponsible and stupid, and it it was pissing me the fuck off. I remember I kept shooting dirty glances at the ceiling. Anyway, I ran out of tape so I went down to the basement storage room for more. But mom and Mike weren't upstairs after all. I opened the door of the storage room to see my mother taking it from behind from my brother with her panties stuffed in her mouth."

We see Emily, who is blushing furiously and looking acutely uncomfortable. "That...did happen, yes."

"Why were your panties in your mouth?" the interviewer asks.

Emily looks so embarrassed that she might die. "They were a gag of sorts, to keep me from making my usual noises. We used them whenever we might be overheard. And... my panties were always wet that summer, either from thinking of Mike or from our...fluids. I love both flavors, and being able to taste either of them while making love...enhanced the experience."

Back to Olivia. "I lost it. I lost my mind. At that moment I hated them both. I was just so sick of it, so sick of them constantly going at each other, so sick of it being where they could be discovered, and soooooo sick of it being me that discovered it."

The interviewer asks, "Were you reconsidering telling your father?"

"No! The whole point of my intervention with mom was that I didn't want dad to find out, but they were acting like they were determined that he catch them in the middle of it. They were acting like horny teenagers -- OK, Mike was a horny teenager, but mom was older. She was supposed to be the wise one who could control herself. I had accepted that they couldn't stop doing it, but damn it, they didn't have to do it constantly. Restraint was possible and they needed to fucking exercise some of it or we would all be in the shit."

"Olivia went apeshit," Mike said. "I had never seen her that angry, and believe me, I've seen her angry plenty. She started going off on us about how we were idiots. Which...I mean, that's fair, we were idiots for each other. Love makes you stupid. And then I said something smartassy and she hauled off and belted me right in the face."

"Yeah, I was out of control," Olivia admits. "I don't even remember what Mike said, but it was one thing too many. Anything might have been one thing too many, honestly. I hit him with a right cross. Pow. Left side of the mouth."

Emily again, and it is obvious that this is a painful memory from the hunched position of her body. "Seeing that, witnessing the violence...was like being doused in icy cold water. We had raised our children not to use violence at all. Even when they were little, there was seldom a physical altercation between them. Olivia was...well, lacrosse can be a violent sport and she never shied away from physical contact, but she wasn't a fighter. I had never even heard of her punching anyone. But she lashed out and struck Mike..."

Mike looks grim. "I'm not a guy who gets hit and takes it, but I took that one. What else could I do?"

Olivia is frowning. "It wasn't my finest hour. I lost control and used violence against someone I love. I'm ashamed of it. I was ashamed of it then, but the shame just made me angrier."

"Why do you think you did it?" the interviewer asks.

"Well it wasn't a planned thing. My fist was moving before I knew it. I was just mad as hell and I felt like I was out of options. Talking to mom about it was maybe the hardest thing I had ever had to do in my life. It was so horrible that I stole liquor to spend the rest of the day drunk. I needed that talk to work and it didn't. I was a high school kid. I was a high school kid! I wasn't equipped for that shit. I...I was trying to save the family. I was trying to make them see what they were doing and they just wouldn't. I lost my temper and I did something I regret to this day." She paused, shakes her head, and adds, "But it worked. I finally had their attention."

"What followed," Emily tells us, "was the sternest, angriest lecture I have ever gotten, before or since."

"Man, she was hot," Mike says ruefully. "She called us every name in the book. She told us how stupid and selfish we were being, and then she told us again using different words, then again, then again, and she just kept telling us. And then she told us that either we learned to control ourselves or she was going straight up the stairs and telling dad everything."

"Of course I was abashed," Emily tells us. "My high school-aged daughter was treating me as though I were a spoiled child, but the painful thing was that she was wholly justified in so doing. Mike and I had been conducting ourselves in a reckless and foolish manner and we had to stop."

"Stop?" the interviewer asks.

"We had to exercise greater discretion," Emily corrects. "There was no stopping. Not then."

"I don't know how long I went on, shouting without shouting," Olivia remembers. "I kept raising my voice and then remembering that dad was one floor up and making myself be quieter. I tore them a variety of new ones. I only stopped because I was losing my voice and I ran out of words to use at them. Besides, they had both shut up and were just taking it. You can't stay enraged when someone does that, it gets to be like...kicking a puppy or something. Not that I've ever kicked a puppy, that's not what I mean. It's just when you expend your rage on someone that's just cowering and taking it, you end up feeling sick to your stomach and you just have to quit. I went up to my bedroom."

Mike is looking acutely uncomfortable. "You know how humiliating it is when your bratty little sister points out what a moron you are? Like, what a moron you have been and are continuing to be? And she's totally justified? And all you can do is nod and mumble and realize how wrong you are because you have no defense and no explanation? Fuck man, that sucked." He pauses, then adds, "Real boner-killer, too."

Emily looks distraught. "How could I gainsay anything my daughter had said? I felt so very low. She had used some very vulgar and offensive language to Mike and me, language that I had certainly never raised her to use. She had punched her brother in the face. And we had deserved it. I had deserved that punch more than Mike did. I couldn't even look at my son."

"I made sure mom was alright," Mike says. "Well, neither of us were alright after that, but she fussed about me getting hit and I made sure she knew I was fine. I told her I loved her. Then I told her that Olivia was right and that we absolutely, positively could not do anything ever again when there was a chance we could be seen or heard by anyone who knew us or might figure out she was my mom. We had to be nothing but careful from there on out."

"He was right," Emily concedes. "We had been foolish and we had been far luckier than we deserved. I agreed immediately, and it was an agreement we kept. We were exceedingly careful from then on, which meant we went from averaging multiple encounters per day to averaging perhaps one every several days. For the next several weeks we were back to stopping in time to make certain we could clean up all the evidence before anyone else got home. We went from reckless to paranoid. Which makes what happened shortly thereafter rather ironic."

The screen goes dark again, and this time we see the legend:

August 28

Bob appears. "It was a Friday evening. I had gone out to have a couple of beers with friends after work and got home about an hour and a half later than I normally do. Olivia was gone, out with friends on her bizarrely extended curfew. Mike was out with his friends. When I got home, Emily was sitting in the living room reading on her Kindle. It seemed like any other Friday evening."

"Mike and I had been together that afternoon, in his bedroom," Emily tells us. "We knew Bob was going to be out later than normal but we still took no chances. We finished almost an hour before he got home. We each showered separately. I put the soiled clothes in the washer, and they were drying when my husband returned."

"I remember we chatted about how our days went," Bob says. "It was normal. Nice."

"I told Bob I needed a few things from the basement," Emily says, "and I was about to go get them when he volunteered to do it."

"Down the basement I went. I was passing by the laundry room when I saw them," Bob tells us. "Red lace on the floor by the washer, some of the sexy new panties Emily had been wearing the past couple months.She'd dropped them when she was doing laundry, I guess, so I went to put them in the hamper. My, ah, my hand came away sticky. The crotch was saturated." He looks grim. "I had seen enough cum-filled panties to know one more pair. I knew the semen in question wasn't mine." His mouth becomes a grim line. "And I knew my wife was having an affair."

The screen goes dark.

Credits roll.

Folie a Deux, Episode 06
Mike and Emily come to the end, and the beginning.  
This is the long-delayed finale of the story Folie a Deux. It's been an awful long time coming, and it feels really good to put the last period on electronic paper.

This story includes an Epilogue, which some people might find anticlimactic. I have been sitting with these characters and having them tell me their stories for so long that I needed to do justice to them and bring them to conclusions. I've kept that section as brief as I could while saying what I needed to say.

Folie à Deux

Episode 6: A Million Pieces

By Senor Smut

Against a black screen we hear the familiar voice of a man. "Tolstoy gets credit for saying that all happy families are happy in the same way, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

We now see a closeup of a white man somewhere in his 40s. He is very handsome, with regular features, dark hair with a few strands of silver at the temples, and piercing blue eyes. He is wearing a gray shirt and, unlike in his previous appearances, a red tie; it looks natural and very good on him. His expression is thoughtful, intense, and perhaps a bit melancholy. Words appear at the bottom of the screen identifying him as Bob Larsen.

"He did say that," he goes on, "but people understood that as far back as Aristotle. The same principle applies to other things, too. There's one way to be smart and infinite ways to be stupid. There's one way to be wise and infinite ways to be foolish. There's one way to live honestly and a million ways to deceive...or be deceived. Or deceive yourself. If you're enough of an idiot you can make all those mistakes at once."

The screen goes black and we see a title card with white letters:

Folie à Deux

Episode 5: A Million Pieces

Several seconds later, that card disappears and is replaced by one reading:

August 28

Back to Bob, who goes on. "Emily and I got married when we were kids, basically. We were 20 years old when we met. It was a brief infatuation for both of us, and it had already ended when Emily learned she was pregnant with Mike. We stayed together and married because of that, but nobody thought we'd last long. Maybe not even us. We did, though. Olivia came along a little later. We stuck it out. We built a life with each other -- around each other, around the kids. I thought we had what we wanted." He pauses again, then adds, "I guess you can believe anything, as long as it's what you want to believe. Right up until the moment you can't anymore."

We hear the voice of the English-accented male interviewer from episodes two and four, who asks, "What was that moment for you?"

"Coming home on a Friday evening and finding a pair of my wife's panties on the laundry room floor, filled with cum I didn't put there."

"How did it make you feel?"

Bob curls his lips sardonically and gives a slight shake of his head. "Gee, I guess I'd have to say it didn't make me very happy."

"Can you be more specific?"

"It...it made me feel like I'd been punched. Like I'd been punched really hard by someone really strong. The air went out of me. I got dizzy. I didn't know where I was for a few seconds. I just kept looking at my hand, sticky with someone else's sperm. Then I ran to the sink and washed and washed and washed."

"And then?"

Bob frowns. "It was all too much. I had too many things going through my head to make sense of any of them. I was in a daze. I took a broom and pushed her panties back between the washer and dryer, back where I'd found them. I'd come downstairs for some things for Emily and I got them, brought them up. I know we talked but I honestly can't remember anything we said. I went upstairs to the little spare bedroom we used as a home office, shut the door, and just...stared."

"You didn't confront her?"

"I was in a daze."

We cut to a white woman in her early 40s. She is utterly striking, with looks that could be taken from a Greek statue: square jaw, huge brown eyes, and stunning, perfectly formed lips around a broad mouth. Her nose is a bit out of proportion, large and prominent, but it does nothing to detract from her loveliness. Her blonde hair is frantically wavy and obviously unmanageable, tumbling down onto the shoulders of her pale blue blouse..

The name below her face reveals her to be Emily Larsen.

From this point until the end of the episode, we only see one person on screen at a time.

"I do remember the evening in question," she tells us in a lovely, rich alto voice with a Midwestern accent. "I had finished making love with my son in his bedroom more than an hour before Bob got home."

We now see a photo of a young man who looks like a cross between Bob and Emily, with much of his mother's facial structure but with his father's shockingly blue eyes and dark brown hair. It is labeled Mike Larsen.

Emily goes on. "I had put all the soiled clothes and bedclothes into the washer and had moved them to the dryer before Bob returned. Bob had gone down the basement to fetch some things for me, and when he came back, he went upstairs. There was nothing unusual in that; he sometimes would spend an evening on the computer, the same as anyone else.

"What was unusual was when I went downstairs to take the things out of the dryer," she continues. "I spotted the panties I had worn that day lying on the floor between the washing machine and the dryer. I had obviously dropped them there, and it gave me a moment of panic. That was the sort of foolish mistake that could get us caught. I concealed them in the hamper and thanked my lucky stars that my husband hadn't seen them." She pauses, and a faint, mirthless grin curls one corner of her mouth. "More the fool I."

Back to Bob. "It was...ahhh...difficult to get my head straight. Emily's behavior and her dress had changed a lot over the previous month or two. I'd noticed it and wondered whether she might be cheating, but there had never been a problem in 18 years of marriage. I mean, I was the one who cheated on her a couple of times years before, not the other way around. She'd never given me any indication that she was doing anything she shouldn't. I wasn't going to believe she was until I had proof. And once I had the proof..."

The ensuing pause stretches long enough that the interviewer finally asks, "Yes?"

Bob sighs. "Once I had the proof, I still didn't believe it. Oh, I knew it was true, don't get me wrong. The mess in those panties was irrefutable. But knowing it was true and believing it was true were two different things. It was going to take a while for head and heart to get onto the same page."

"Did you have any idea who her paramour might have been?"

"No. Well...yes and no. I mean, I had ideas. She taught dance at the University and worked around a bunch of very very healthy men, some of whom had reputations. I could think of half a dozen of them who might have been responsible. She had students. We had neighbors, we had friends -- look, Emily was a very beautiful woman. She drew attention. I was never ignorant of that fact. It could have been a lot of guys."

"And you still did not suspect your son?"

"No. And this is the first time you guys have asked that question that I might conceivably have answered yes. But I still didn't, because...well Christ, because. Almost literally any other guy in the world was a more likely suspect. And besides, the 'who' of it wasn't even what was worrying me the most."

"No? What did worry you?"

"The cum in those panties was there because it had run out of her body," Bob explains. "A man had put it into her body. Emily couldn't use birth control because she had bad reactions to it."

"You were worried she might get pregnant?"

Bob nods grimly. "Very worried. I knew the marriage might survive infidelity. Hell, I'd cheated on her, I wasn't preaching from high and dry moral ground. And...and it wasn't as though our sex life could keep her satisfied if she had any drive."

"Your sex life was...?"

"Nonexistent," Bob supplied. "Or close enough to it. The physical attraction we'd shared when we first met had burned bright, but it had also burned out. Back when the kids were just born and very young, we were both too tired for anything anyway. Years passed, both of us exhausting ourselves with work and child care and daily life, and sex had just fallen off the table. Oh we still did it from time to time, but it was...nice. Just nice. Just something we'd do because we wanted each other to feel good. There was no passion, and there hadn't been for a long time. If something -- someone -- had reawakened her sex drive, then it was understandable she'd look somewhere else to satisfy it."

"But?"

"But if she got pregnant with someone else's kid, that's a completely different ball game. Even if she got an abortion -- and she was always a staunch supporter of abortion rights -- it would still have been something I doubt I could have forgiven. Just knowing she'd been carrying another man's child would have been a very wide river for me to cross."

"But the sex itself wasn't?"

Bob is quiet for a moment. "I loved Emily. I really did. It wasn't a passionate love. It wasn't a Hollywood love for the ages. But she was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I loved her, I admired her, she was my best friend. If the price of that was...was an open relationship, then I think I could have handled that. I'm not saying it wouldn't have been challenging. It wouldn't have been easy or comfortable at first. But if we'd had the conversation, if she'd have said that she wanted to get sex from somewhere else, if I was free to do the same, and at the end of the day we would be together because we loved each other and wanted each other to be happy...I could have been convinced."

"But the person she wanted it with was your son."

Bob says nothing.

We return to a thoughtful-looking Emily. "Even a perfectly fulfilling marriage can be a fragile thing. My marriage to Bob was not perfectly fulfilling. The further I went with Mike, the more we added emotional components to our sexual relationship, the more...the more we fell in love, the more it became obvious that my marriage was never going to give me what I needed."

"You didn't love your husband?" the interviewer asks.

"No, I did love Bob," Emily says emphatically. "In a great many ways I still love Bob. He's a very good man. Fairy tales tell you that all you need to last through any difficulty is love, but that is ridiculous. Love is a piece, but it is not the only piece. And besides -- and more importantly -- there are different sorts of love, and in different degrees.

"The simple fact was that Mike gave me more. More love, more lust, more passion, more enjoyment, more fulfillment, more happiness, more excitement, more tenderness, more compassion, more completion, more connection. Being with him, even simply watching television or cooking a meal with him, gave me a greater sense of wholeness than I had ever gotten from Bob." Emily shrugs her shoulders eloquently. "I was beginning to think the most extraordinary thoughts."

"Such as?"

"Such as my son and I possibly having a life together. Man and woman. Lovers. Husband and wife in all but name." She pauses a moment, then adds, "Parents."

"You were thinking of children with Mike?"

Emily nods slowly. "Yes. It was a thought that I was fighting against because it was fraught with difficulties, but I couldn't be rid of it. It kept creeping into my mind at odd times...the thought of conceiving a child with Mike, feeling it grow inside me, bringing it into the world to be loved completely by me and my ideal man. After all, I was nearing 40, and the biological imperative is strong...irresistible at times."

"Is that why you never practiced any form of safe sex?"

"Not at first. At first there simply wasn't room in my mind for practical considerations when I was so taken with the newness of the relationship, the exhilaration of it. Eventually there came a point, though, when I could have insisted Mike begin to use condoms."

"And you didn't because you wanted him to make you pregnant?"

Emily shrugs again. "I told myself I didn't because I've never liked the things. They're uncomfortable to have inside me and decrease sensation for the man, no matter what the advertisements would have you believe. Besides, as a woman nears menopause, her fertility drops dramatically. I told myself there was no need to be careful because the chances of conception were dwindling by the day. But...those were excuses. Deep down, yes, I wanted a child with Mike. Children."

We see Bob again. "There could have been another explanation. Maybe the guy she was with was infertile, or maybe he'd had a vasectomy. But even then, there's disease to consider. It was irresponsible, even if the sex itself was understandable. It meant that she was already moving away from the marriage. In her heart, in her mind, the marriage wasn't worth saving. It took me a few days to realize that, but I got there."

Emily again, who speaks slowly, obviously considering every word before she says it. "When a married person finds passion outside of the marriage with a new partner, it is not necessarily a fatal blow to the marriage. But when that person finds love -- let alone such a powerful love as Mike and I shared -- then yes, the marriage is doomed. My marriage was doomed. I was becoming more and more conscious of the fact each day. One cannot imagine a future with someone other than one's spouse and still have confidence in one's marriage. There was no other way for things to end than how they did."

"I spent the rest of the evening in the office," Bob tells us. "I waited until Emily had gone to bed, then I went downstairs and turned on the TV. I was there when Mike and Olivia got home, and I stayed there when they went upstairs to sleep. I knew I couldn't go lie in my marriage bed with Emily. I didn't get a wink of sleep all night."

Another black screen, this time with the words:

August 29 - September 21

Mike appears now, wearing a white button-down shirt with the collar open. "The hell of it is, mom and I had been really careful," he tells us in his deep, certain voice. "We'd been going at it like dogs for weeks and all of a sudden we were backing way off. We were both horny all the time, but it was better than dad finding out."

"Did you notice any difference in your father in the ensuing days?" the interviewer asks.

"Mmmm, no, not really. I wasn't paying that much attention, honestly. College was going to start in a couple of weeks, I was still working my summer job, Olivia was still robbing me blind to keep her mouth shut."

We see a photograph of a lovely young woman of obvious parentage. She is wearing a maroon Boston College jersey and carrying a lacrosse stick. She is identified as Olivia Larsen.

"One phase of my life was ending and anoter was beginning," he goes on as we see him again. "And that's not even counting the fact that most of my mental processes were taken up by mom. I didn't have room for much else. Which...doesn't mean I wasn't starting to feel more guilty about what we were doing. Not, you know, not guilty about doing it, but after Olivia's interventions, I couldn't ignore the fact that what mom and I were doing was damaging the rest of the family. It wasn't enough to make me stop what we were doing, but then nothing short of guns to our heads would have stopped us. It just made me aware that we were being selfish dicks."

Bob again, who says, "During the next few days, as the shock wore off, I was starting to piece things together. I wasn't piecing them together correctly, but I was putting them in a pattern that was believable to me. At first I thought that Emily's affair had begun either at or right before the 4th of July party at her department chair's house, since that was when her behavior started to change. That made me think it was someone at the party that she was messing with, probably a coworker. But then I started thinking about the accident that started everything, when she and Mike were driving out to California for the wedding. There had been weeks of tension between them after that, and then suddenly it resolved and they were happy with each other, spending more time together, being really affectionate. I remember thinking, 'It's almost like she's having an affair with Mike,' but I immediately dismissed it because that's insane."

"What did you think was going on instead?"

The question earns another sardonic grin from Bob. "I built a little narrative in my head. I decided that it was likely that Emily was having an affair before the trip. On the drive, Mike found out about it somehow and they argued, and it was her distraction during that argument that caused the crash. They stayed angry until something happened -- I thought maybe Mike saw that she was happier and the marriage wasn't in danger -- and then he got OK with it. They bonded over a shared secret. He was helping her cover it up."

"A reasonable supposition."

"For something that's wrong in every particular, sure, perfectly reasonable." He pauses for a beat, then adds, "And it's still more probable than what actually happened."

"How did that make you feel about Mike?"

"At first I resented him for not telling me, but that didn't last long. I wasn't even sure what was going on, and it's stupid to resent someone for something that they've only done in your head. Besides, I thought about how I would have reacted if I was 18 and I'd found out one of my parents was cheating on the other, and I'm pretty sure I'd have buried my head and done my best to pretend I didn't know a thing. If I was right and he had confronted Emily about it, well, good for him. Later, I had yelled at him to resolve the tensions between him and his mother, so if he was doing that by covering up her affair, it...wasn't ideal, but hell, he'd done what I'd told him to. They weren't angry at each other all the time anymore. You can't expect an 18 year old kid to always make good calls. And I figured he wasn't the one cheating on me, so why should I be mad at him?"

"What about Olivia? Did you notice any change in her behavior?"

"All I noticed was that she was spending a lot more time away from the house and had a lot of new things -- clothes and shoes mostly, lots of shoes. I assumed she had a boyfriend she wasn't telling us about, someone old enough to be out of high school. I confess I wasn't a very good father then, because that's definitely something a parent ought to talk to a child about, but I let it ride. She was a smart, strong kid, and I didn't have the energy to focus on anything that didn't look like an emergency."

"How long did this period last?"

"Period of..."

"Of thought, of consideration, of not taking action."

Bob frowns. "It lasted until the third week of September or so. But of course, things weren't standing still waiting for me to make up my mind, were they?"

Mike again. "I started college the day after Labor Day."

"Which is?" the English interviewer asks.

"First Monday in September," Mike chuckles. "That year the first Monday was on the 7th, which meant I started on September 8th. And anybody who's ever started college can tell you how that makes you feel like you're in a different world. Up until then you've had everything fed to you, everything handed to you. College is a different vibe -- mine was, anyway. There was a kind of a...frisson in the air, like this dog-eat-dog mentality that came out even during orientation and the first few classes."

"Were you a good student?"

"Yeah, I was a really good student. I still am, false modesty aside. My grades were good all through school. I'd earned a scholarship to my college that was supposed to include on-campus housing, but they'd fucked that up on their end so there wasn't a dorm room for me. I had to live at home, which honestly was fine with me, given how intense my relationship with mom was."

"What were you studying?"

"Initially I thought pre-law, but the way things played out I got really excited about the sciences and I ended up switching to a geology and hydrology major pretty quick."

"Were you involved in extracurricular activities?"

Mike laughs. "Besides with mom?. Well I had always been a two-sport athlete, with football in the fall and baseball in the spring, but I knew I wasn't good enough to do anything but ride pine at the college level, and the idea of taking time away from my studies -- and from mom -- led me to drop athletics once I got to college. So I got involved in some campus organizations, geology club, French language club, some other stuff. Some political organizations. As much as I had time for. I made a lot of friends and hung out with them too."

"And were you tempted by college girls?"

Mike smiles. He is handsome and charming, and with his commanding presence it is easy to imagine college girls flocking to him. But he simply says, "I already had the best girl in the world at home. Nobody else even registered."

"You never even looked?"

"Oh, I looked. I wasn't dead. But my heart was very firmly taken."

We return to Emily again. "Mike entering college was an adjustment for me, and it was not always an easy one. The year one enters college is perhaps the most transformative year of a person's life. The person who comes out of their first year is seldom the same person who went in. As a university professor, I saw that continuously. What Mike and I were sharing was new and fragile and infinitely precious. I knew all too well that his tastes might change, or that the experience he was getting might well lead him to conclude that we couldn't continue to be lovers."

"How did that make you feel?" the interviewer asks.

"It was very stressful. I would do everything I could to hold onto him, but I was also aware that he might simply slip away from me. I had made up my mind that, if he truly wished to end it between us, I would not fight him or do anything contemptible to hold onto him. I had to allow him to become a man, his own man, and hope that the man he became still wanted me to be his woman."

"It sounds like a difficult position to be in."

Emily concedes the point with a nod. "I lost more than one night of sleep over it. But of course I was a teacher, so my schedule increased around that time as well. I could throw myself into my work and distract myself somewhat."

"And did you and Mike still continue your physical relationship during this time?"

"Whenever possible," Emily nods, "though that was more difficult. We had decided that we could not make love in the house when others were there, or even when there was a small chance of them coming home, so we had to steal moments where and when we could."

"We began running errands together," Mike tells us. "Shopping or whatever. We'd just get in the car and go, just to spend some time together."

We see a picture of Emily from that period, standing in front of a new Toyota Avalon hybrid, deep blue in color, holding up the keys and smiling. We are informed that Emily replaced her minivan, "Lou," with a Toyota Avalon which she calls "Avy."

The interviewer asks Mike, "You didn't take those opportunities to have sex?"

"No, like I said, we were being extra careful. No messing around where we could be seen or caught or anything. I would have loved a repeat of the road head incident, but we had to be good."

Emily now, who smiles. "I loved our trips together. Mike would drive and I would sit in the passenger seat and watch him. When we were out together we really felt like a couple. We weren't merely illicit lovers. We were doing the stuff of ordinary life together, the little everyday things that make couples rely upon one another. It felt so very natural. It felt so very right. And it made me want much more of that."

"And there was no hanky-panky on those trips?" the interviewer asks.

"There was not, as difficult as it is to believe!" Emily laughs. "We held hands. We kissed. In the car. There was the occasional...petting session, shall we say? Strictly over-the-clothes. We always stopped before things got too heated, and we behaved ourselves as much as we could."

We return to Mike. "That was hard, man. For a while during the summer it had been multiple times per day, but even after Olivia caught us and we got a lot more cautious, it was still multiple times per week. First couple weeks of college, we did it one time, on a weekend when dad was over at his brother's place and Olivia was at lacrosse. One time. And it was an awesome time because we were both so hungry for it that we just ripped each other apart, but still...multiple times per day to once in two weeks. Not an easy adjustment to make. Pressure was building. On everyone."

We see Olivia for the first time. Her nose is still crooked from being broken, but her black eyes are gone. Her hair has faded from candy apple red to reddish-orange and is coming in dark blonde at the roots. She is wearing a classy black sweater, which makes her already slim frame seem girlish. She tells us, "By the middle of September I was picking up on vibes from dad. He was kind of tense all the time, like he had something big on his mind. And it was around then that I started seeing him stare at mom, like...like when she wasn't looking, he'd sometimes just stare holes in her. And then she'd turn around and he'd be back to normal in a flash."

"What did you make of that?" the interviewer asks.

"It made me nervous. Those were suspicious, angry looks. I was hoping dad wouldn't find out about mom and Mike." She pauses, then says, "Well, I was hoping he wouldn't find out until after I'd graduated high school."

"You assumed he would find out, though?"

"Well...yeah. I mean, mom and Mike were insanely in love with each other. They were being a lot more careful now and not doing stupid shit that would get them caught, but if anything, what they had was getting deeper and stronger, not less so. You can't keep that under wraps forever."

"That must have been quite strange for you."

"Well of course it was!" she laughs. "Of course. When I thought about it, it was creepy and disgusting and gross and everything else. But...look, you can't keep being freaked out by the same thing constantly. Sooner or later you make room for it. It became just a weird secret I had to keep, and I guess every family has a few of those."

"With everything that was happening, what did you think the most likely outcome would be?"

Olivia takes a moment to consider, and then shrugs and says, "I was a high school girl. I didn't know. I was trying not to think of it. But...but even I knew mom and dad weren't going to last. Dad just didn't know it yet. Well, except that he did."

Back to Bob. "When a marriage nears its end, things usually get pretty bad between the spouses. Disrespect, anger, accusations, straight-up loathing. I certainly walked that road, but there was absolutely none of that from Emily. Her behavior toward me didn't really change. I don't even know if her feelings for me changed, as odd as that sounds. She was still the same Emily, except happier and filled with joy in a way that she hadn't been since before she got pregnant with Mike."

"But you say your feelings for her changed?"

"Obviously."

We see Emily again, looking pensive. "I began to notice Bob's attitude toward me shifting. It was a series of small things, but after 19 years of marriage -- 19 very routine years, I must add -- those small things were remarkable."

"Such as?" the interviewer asks.

"He began to stay up later, so that I would be asleep when he came to bed. He actually spent several nights on the sofa, claiming he'd fallen asleep while watching television. On one of the first very chilly nights in September, I rolled over to cuddle with him and a few minutes later he got up, went to the bathroom, and stayed there until I fell asleep."

We see Bob again, who is frowning. "Sharing a bed with her was becoming more and more difficult. For all I knew, she'd been using our bed for her affair, and that idea made it hard to lie there. Most nights I had to force myself into bed with her. Some nights I couldn't manage it at all. And I could take touching her or being touched by her when we weren't in bed, but in bed her touch began to make my skin crawl."

Back to Emily. "Once when I was changing, I looked in the mirror and saw him watching me. That was not unusual -- he always liked to watch me dress, even after our sex life had dwindled to nothing. This time, though, the look in his eyes was...angry, resentful, hurt, almost enraged. I recall I actually gasped when I saw it, but when I asked him what was wrong, he simply smiled and said nothing was wrong at all."

"It was the unprotected sex thing that was getting to me," Bob tells us. "For all I knew, she was having sex with this guy every day. She might be carrying another man's cum into our marriage bed every day. I remember lying wide awake one night wondering if right at that moment, some man's sperm was fertilizing her egg. Every minute I was dealing with the uncertainty of it, knowing it was happening but not knowing the facts. Which is always the problem in an infidelity situation, isn't it? The, um...the 'wronged' spouse, for lack of a better term, always wants to know all the details even though it's more painful that way. It's a constant itch you can't scratch. It wears you down. It just wears you down."

The screen goes dark again, and we see another set of dates:

September 22 - October 17

"Tuesday night lacrosse practice," Olivia tells us as we see her again. "September 22nd. It was a drizzly evening, I was muddy and soaked to the bone and sore from getting into a couple of collisions. Dad came to pick me up. I dumped my stuff in the trunk of the car, got into the front, took one look at his expression, and said, 'Ohhh fuck, this is bad.' He looked like a pot about to boil."

"It's not always a big issue that sets you off," Bob relates. "The straw that broke the camel's back is a real thing. I'd just come from home and Emily looked so god-damned bubbly, so happy, and all I wanted to do was smack the smile off her face. I have never hit a woman and I will never hit a woman, but Christ I wanted to."

"Why?" the interviewer asks.

"Because hers was the mood of someone who'd just had great sex. I knew without a doubt that she had been with a guy that afternoon, that he'd probably come inside her, and she was tracking that shit into my house."

We see Emily, who admits, "Tuesday afternoons were very quiet in my department. Mike had visited me in my office that afternoon -- this became our pattern, in fact, as I could lock my door and we could be together without being seen. It had been a quick session, but was rough and thrilling and entirely satisfying. I was in a very good mood."

"I hadn't forgotten Olivia's new shoes and clothes," Bob tells us. "She'd stopped getting them so whatever situation it had been had apparently resolved itself, but it was still something that I, as a father, should address. That's the kind of itch you scratch when you can't get at what's really driving you crazy."

"I thought maybe if I was quiet, dad wouldn't come at me," Olivia says, "but after like a minute of silence, he asks if there was anything I wanted to tell him."

"What did you make of that?" the interviewer asks.

"I thought he'd found out about mom and Mike. I was too scared to say anything back. He kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye with this really angry expression, so finally I was like, 'Nooooo...' And then he asked me about shoes, of all things."

"I asked her if someone had bought her all the new articles of clothing she'd picked up," Bob says.

"I'd gotten all that stuff from the money I'd gotten from Mike," Olivia explains.

"The money you'd extorted from him?" the interviewer asks.

Olivia gives a loud laugh. "Shit, dude, extortion is an ugly word...an ugly, accurate word. Yes, the money I had extorted from Mike to keep my mouth shut about him and mom."

"What did you tell him?"

"Well I hadn't expected him to ask that. I was expecting something more along the lines of, 'How long have you known about your mother and brother?' So the shoe question really threw me. I didn't know what to say. He asked if a boy had bought them for me, like a boyfriend. I wasn't really doing boyfriends at the time, just hookups, but I wasn't gonna tell him that I was just having casual sex with a few different guys and none of them were paying me in fashionable footwear. Finally I said something about buying them with birthday money."

"Unlike her mother, Olivia is perfectly capable of telling a lie," Bob says. "But I knew that was BS. She'd blown through her birthday money five minutes after she'd gotten it. There was no way she had hundreds of dollars to buy things all of a sudden. I accused her of seeing an older man. Things...spiraled down from there."

"All of a sudden he was insisting I had a sugar daddy," Olivia says. "And this was out of the blue for me, right out of left field. I mean if I had been seeing someone a few years older and he'd bought me some nice things, and dad had asked respectfully and kindly, then I would have told him. Probably. Maybe. I dunno, I probably wouldn't have. But with the tone he had, I wouldn't have told him if I was engaged to Jeff Bezos. So I got mad, then he got mad, then we both got madder, and by the time we got home we were screaming at each other."

"Not my finest parental moment," Bob concedes. "No excuses offered."

"I was livid," Olivia says. "My dad was almost calling me a whore. That would have been more than enough to set me off, but the circumstances made it even worse because the stuff I bought and the money I got and dad's continually edgy mood all traced back to what mom and Mike were doing -- and I couldn't tell him that! I hated lying to him, it made me feel like shit, but it was happening and I was involved and it made me feel disgusting.

"I was covered in mud from practice. Usually I would go down the basement and change clothes before going into the house, but that night I ran upstairs and into Mike's room. I didn't even take off my cleats."

"I was in my bedroom studying when Olivia storms in and slams the door behind her," Mike tells us. "She slammed it hard enough that it knocked a picture off my wall. And then she starts tearing into me about how dad tore into her about shoes or some shit. I didn't even know what she was talking about for a couple of minutes, and when I did figure it out I was like...bitch, nobody told you to blackmail me."

"He was right, of course," Olivia says with a sheepish grin, "but I didn't care because fuck him. The family was coming apart because of him and mom and...well, no, the family was coming apart because of that bunch of biker shitbags, but I wasn't thinking of that at the moment. To me, at that moment, it seemed like Mike and mom were deliberately ripping the family to pieces for their own selfish reasons. I blamed them both, and I took it out on him."

"I wondered why Olivia followed up our argument with another argument with her brother," Bob tells us. "I wondered how he was involved in all this, because that argument made it clear that he was in it somehow. And no, I didn't put two and two together yet, but...let's just say I was reaching for my calculator."

"Over the ensuing days, things became...claustrophobic," Emily tells us. "I had initially expected Bob's mood to be transitory. After all, everyone goes through rough patches. But it was not passing, and indeed it was getting worse day on day. I had tried talking to him about it several times, but he always assured me that nothing was wrong."

"What did you make of that?"

Emily considers, then says, "He had always been open with his problems and concerns before. We were very close in that way -- we could always rely upon one another to provide emotional support and understanding. That he was now excluding me was alarming."

"Did you think he suspected you?"

"I could think of no other explanation."

Mike again, who says, "It was becoming pretty obvious that dad knew something was up. He's a smart guy, so once he was on the trail I think we all knew deep down that it was a matter of time until he pieced it together. But what could mom and I do? We'd already stopped doing anything when there was any chance we could get caught. We couldn't do less than nothing."

"What about how you and your mother were behaving toward each other in other ways?" the interviewer asks.

Mike shifts uncomfortably. "Well...I mean...we weren't obvious about anything."

Olivia now, who smirks as she says, "Mom and Mike were walking around eye-fucking each other constantly. They couldn't have been more obviously in love if they were wearing matching tee shirts saying OBVIOUSLY WE'RE IN LOVE. There were times even I thought it was cute. But dangerous as hell, of course."

Returning to Emily, she tells us, "If Mike and I had been having a purely physical affair, then it would have been easier to conceal. But the emotions we shared were so intense that, in retrospect, I suppose it was too much to expect that they wouldn't be noticed."

We see Bob again. "The first time I had a real suspicion about Mike and Emily was the first third of October, like the 7th or 8th. Emily had taken to giving Mike rides home from college -- Mike wasn't attending the University, so it meant she was driving a few miles out of her way almost every day to pick him up."

"I was not picking Mike up from his college," Emily explains as we cut to her. "He was taking a bus to meet me at my work. As I mentioned before, on Tuesdays we were making love in my office, but on other days we would simply spend time together. I wanted to spend every moment with Mike. When I wasn't with him, I was thinking about him. Simply sitting and talking in a place where we could express ourselves freely was a joyful experience."

"When Emily came into the house," Bob says, "she was just oozing satisfaction. I don't know whether it was from sex or not, but she was sooo happy about something. I looked at her and said, well, there's a woman madly in love. Mike was right behind her, watching her as she walked, and he had the same expression. Exactly the same. And I was like...huh. Huh."

"You knew then?' the interviewer asks.

"Not...not knew. But suddenly I thought of it. Suddenly the possibility occurred to me. And it instantly fit so much of what had happened. It rearranged all those pieces I'd been wondering about, and suddenly they all just clicked together. A lot of things that had seemed unimportant or inexplicable at the time now made a pattern."

"What sort of things had seemed inexplicable?"

"A lot of it was how...I dunno, deferential to Mike Emily was becoming. When he made a suggestion, she went with it. When he had a preference, what was what we did. When he wanted something, Emily got it for him. She hadn't done that kind of thing for him since he was six years old, and then...well, then it was a totally different context. Then it was a mom doing things for her kid. Now, though, it was...well, once I thought of them together as a couple, it seemed pretty obvious that it was a woman doing things for her man."

"Was that typical of how she treated you?"

Bob snorts. "No. No it was not. She had never treated me that way, not even when we were first together. We had always been a partnership of equals, but this looked...well hell, it looked submissive. And that was not the Emily I knew at all." He pauses, then shakes his head and adds, "Which I guess means I never really knew her as well as I thought I did." He pauses again, a miserable expression on his face, until finally he admits, "So...I guess I did know it was true. I guess I did. Yeah."

"What did you do?"

"To be honest I don't even remember the next few hours after I made the connection. I know I went up to the home office and stared at the computer screen. I didn't even turn it on."

"Do you remember anything you thought?"

"Yeah. 'Why him? How could they do that with each other? How could they do that to me?' It was mostly that, over and over again. Sorry, I wish I could say I had more interesting reactions, but it took a few days to get my feet underneath me again."

"I don't remember that night specifically," Mike tells us, "but dad called in sick for a couple days right after that. And that was weird, because he's a guy who goes to work when he's almost dead. I didn't connect it to anything though, I figured he was just ill."

"Over like the next week or so, dad got icy toward mom and Mike," Olivia says. "He barely talked to them. He couldn't even be in the same room with both of them at the same time -- either of them alone seemed to be kind of OK, he just ignored them. But the other one would come in and in a couple of minutes dad would leave."

"So it was becoming pretty obvious that he knew?" the interviewer asks.

"Ummm...yeah, I think so. I guess so. I mean, I hoped I was misreading it. I hoped I was wrong and he had some other bug up his butt, but I was getting ready for the blow-up. Trying to, I mean, trying to mentally prepare myself for the shit hitting the fan.

"It was a really hard time for me, because I had spent my life since middle school preparing to get a lacrosse scholarship to my dream school, Boston College. If things exploded at home and people found out about it -- and I assumed everyone would find out about it -- then I was done at my high school. I could never show my face again. How can you expect a teenager to face a school full of people who know that about her family? You get a little older and you don't give a shit, but at that point in your life, social acceptance is everything. Dropping out of school would mean the end of my scholarship chances, and for all I knew the end of my school career. And I couldn't even talk to anybody about it."

We return to Bob. His eyes glisten. "Mike and I had been very close when he was little. He was my shadow. As he got into his teen years, he developed independence early and we spent less time together, but our relationship stayed good. Very good, even. We loved doing things with each other, whether it was a guys' camping weekends or watching a ball game or just talking. I loved him with everything I had inside me. I admired him, the man he was becoming. I was so proud of him. I was so fucking proud."

"And after the realization?" the interviewer asks.

A single tear escapes Bob's eye and begins to roll down his cheek, but he wipes it away with an abrupt and irritated gesture. "I wished he would have killed me instead."

Emily again. "By the middle of October, Bob was avoiding me in almost any way he could. We barely spoke anymore. Those glares that had been behind my back were now coming to my face. It was an utterly miserable situation."

"Did he address it with you?" the interviewer asks.

"No, and I did not ask because I believed I knew what answer I would get."

"How was he treating Mike?' the interviewer asks.

"Mike felt the rising anger and had begun avoiding him. It was easier for him to do that than it was for me -- he could retreat to his own bedroom to study or be alone. However...when they were together, eventually there was the same tension between them as between Bob and I."

"So you knew he suspected who you were being unfaithful with."

"I assumed he did, yes. And that was awful."

"Were you making preparations for a confrontation?"

"I quietly packed a small suitcase and put it in my closet, and I advised Mike to do the same. All I could do was hope against hope that I was wrong."

"There was no one thing that convinced me of the truth," Bob tells us. "There was no smoking gun. But the more I thought, the more I watched, the more I knew what was going on. One dark night when I was on the sofa watching infomercials, I finally convinced myself. And once you convince yourself of something like that, you can't turn away. You need to act."

The screen goes dark and we see:

October 18

Bob again, who says, "Sunday night. October 18th. Emily and Mike had been flirting with each other all weekend. All Mike had to do was catch her eye and Emily would blush and giggle and look away. It was making me physically ill with rage. I just couldn't take any more."

Emily looks unhappy. "I was in our bedroom laying out my clothes for the next day. It had been more than a week since Bob had been in the room with me while we were both awake, so I was not expecting it when he entered and closed the door behind him. I looked up and him, and he asked --"

Cut to Bob, who says, "'Are you having an affair with our son?'"

We return to Emily. "So. Finally the end had come."

"What did you say?" the interviewer asks.

Emily shrugs. "I said yes."

We see Bob again, who is silent for a long moment; it is the expression on his face that makes the silence painful. Finally he says, "Even then I was hoping I was wrong. Not about the affair -- I knew I was right about that -- but about it being with Mike. But I saw the truth as I asked the question, even before she answered. I saw the...the depth of it. Of the betrayal. In her eyes, on her face, in her posture. She didn't have to admit it. I knew."

Quietly, the interviewer asks, "What did you do?"

Bob shakes his head, his mouth a grim line, and says, "I am not going to repeat what I said to my wife. The language I used, the things I said...they don't reflect well on either of us -- me because I said them, and her because they were true."

Emily, who looks sad but surprisingly resolute. "He said terrible things. Terrible things. The fact that he never raised his voice a decibel made it all the worse. It wasn't a screaming, rage-filled tirade. It was...an indictment."

"Did you explain what had happened?" the interviewer asks. "How everything had begun?"

"No. He wouldn't have listened. If I had told him right after Mike and I arrived in San Francisco, he would have listened...not anymore. I simply let him tell me what he needed to tell me so that I could leave."

"Leave?"

"The room. The house." Pause. "The marriage."

"That seems quite determined. You'd been on tenterhooks about his behavior to you."

Emily considers, then says, "The worst thing is to have a sword over your head. You dread the fall, you dread the pain, you dread the consequences, so much so that it can incapacitate you. Once the blow lands, however terrible it is, you no longer have the dread, you simply have the facts. Facts are things you can deal with."

"You make it sound as though being exposed by your husband was a relief."

"I didn't have to deceive him anymore."

"Fifteen minutes," Bob says. "Twenty, maybe. That's how long it took me to tell her everything I ever wanted to say to her again. Just about one minute for every year of our marriage. Then I told her I was leaving to pick Olivia up from her friend's house, and she and Mike needed to be gone by the time I got back."

"The moment he left, I raced to Mike's room and told him what had happened," Emily says. "Then I went back for my suitcase."

Mike, looking sad. "So that was it. That was the end, of the family, of my relationship with my father. For all I knew, the end of freedom for me and mom, the end of my scholarship, the end of...everything. Everything I'd ever known."

"What did you do?" the interviewer asks.

"I grabbed my go-bag. Then I texted Olivia that dad knew and was on his way."

To Olivia, who sighs, "Fuuuckiiiing fuck. Dad had sent me a text like two minutes before telling me he was on the way, and then Mike sends that. All I wanted to do was turn and run as far as I could go. All I could do was wait for my dad."

"What was it like when he got there?" the interviewer asks.

"Ugh. I got into the car and he looked at me. Just looked for like half a minute. I just kept shrinking down into my seat. Then he asked me if I'd known about it. He didn't tell me what had happened, he just asked me if I knew. And I said I did."

Bob still looks a bit stunned at the recollection. "Of the three people in the world whom I loved the most, one had betrayed me with another, and the third had known and covered it up. I couldn't have been a bigger fool. I just couldn't have been a bigger fool at all."

Mike once more, who slowly tells us, "What kills me to this day is that dad never deserved what he got from mom and me. I admire my dad. Whatever I know about being a man, I learned from him. He's good and kind, he's wise and supportive. He's everything a dad ought to be. He didn't earn what we gave him. I just..." There is a painful pause, and finally he sighs and says, "I just don't think it ever could have turned out any way but how it did. From the moment the Visigoths decided to make me have sex with my mom, I...I feel like I never had a choice except to fall in love with her."

"Some might say that sounds like an excuse," the interviewer jabs.

Mike nods, his eyes downcast. "Some would. Most would. All I know is that with what I felt, with what mom felt...it didn't seem like we had a chance to turn away. Early on we tried and it was too strong, it just pulled us right back in. We were too perfect together to ever want anyone else."

We see Emily, who sadly says, "Poor Bob."

"Taken as a whole," the interviewer asks, "do you feel justified in your actions toward your husband, from the time the affair began to the end of the marriage?"

She is plainly unhappy with the question, but her gaze never wavers as she says, "Justified? Of course I don't...and of course I do."

"What does that mean?"

"Bob deserved better than he received. He deserved a better wife and a better son. He deserved to have his love and respect returned with the same, instead of with betrayal. What Mike and I did to him was unforgivable."

"But?"

"But what I felt for Mike as a man, as a lover, as a mate, as my everything, was so much greater than what I ever felt for Bob that comparing them isn't fair to either of them. They're different in type, not merely in magnitude. There was nothing I wouldn't do for Mike, just as there was nothing he wouldn't do for me. How could what I had with Bob ever compare to that? How could it stand in the way of that?"

"So the ends justified the means?"

Emily shrugs. "I'll let others make their own determinations. All I can say is that, for what Mike and I share to come to fruition, Bob needed to suffer. There has never been a day since that I have regretted my decision to be with Mike. Whether it was justified or no, I wouldn't change a thing. Not one thing."

"Some would describe that as amoral."

Emily's gaze is level and unflinching as she says, "I imagine they would."

Returning to Olivia, she tells us, "Walking into the house was like walking into a tomb. A whole family had just been buried there. I went upstairs and stood in the doorway of Mike's room, and it hit me that I would never see my stupid, annoying jerk of a brother who I loved so much in that room ever again. My parents room was now just my dad's room. Mom was gone. My mom had always been there, every second of my life, and now she wasn't."

"What did you do?" the interviewer asks.

"I lay down on my bed and sobbed. Just sobbed. My whole body hurt from it. Eventually I wore myself out and fell asleep. I had nightmares."

Bob again. "Since college, I had never been much of a drinker. That night I drank so I could pass out, and I did."

We return to Mike. "When we drove away that night, the only life I'd ever lived was gone for good. Mom and I went to a hotel., and the drive there was the weirdest thing. When I pulled out of our driveway, I was shattered. It felt like everything had just ended. But...it was crazy, because the further away from the house we got, the more it felt like...like something was beginning. Like yeah, the old door closed, but here was this brand new one."

"Were you concerned that your father would go to the police about you and your mother?" the interviewer asks.

"Well yeah. He'd told her he would when he'd confronted her. I assumed that the hammer was going to come down pretty soon."

"So that new door must not have looked particularly inviting."

Mike shrugs. "Well that's the thing with a door. You don't know what's on the other side until you open it. Maybe there was a world of shit on the other side of that door but...mom was on the other side too. Emily was on the other side, and even if she was only there for one night, she gave me the strength to walk through."

Keen observers will note that this is the first time Mike has referred to his mother by her given name.

We see Emily now, looking a little happier than before as she reminisces, "So, my marriage had ended and I was still alive, and still with the man I loved. It would be the first night we spent together -- the first time we went to sleep in the same bed and woke up in the same bed since we'd become lovers. For all I knew, it would be the only night. If that were the case, I wanted to make it a night that neither of us would ever forget. Even if the worst happened, even if we were sent to jail for our love, we would always have that night to keep us warm. It was a gift I wanted to give to both of us."

"How long can the prison sentence be for incest in Minnesota?" the interviewer asks.

"Up to ten years," Emily replies. "Our fears were not abstract."

"Did you consider running?"

"Not for a moment."

"Why not?"

"Where could we go? How far could we run with the little money we had? What would we do when we got there? If these were to be our last free hours, I wanted to spend them in bliss, not in flight."

We see Mike again, who says, "I never thought about running. I don't know why, I just didn't. All I thought about was getting someplace where Emily and I could be alone. That was a hotel -- and a much nicer one than the last one we had been in."

What was the conversation in the car like?" the interviewer asks.

"Ummmm...minimal, I would say. I think we both needed to spend a little time in our own heads. Anyway, it only took 20 minutes to get to the hotel."

"I got the room for four nights, just to have a place to shelter." Emily tells us with obvious fondness for the memory. "The room we got was actually quite pleasant. There was a large television, a clean bathroom, and a queen-sized bed that was very comfortable." She grins and adds, "Obviously, the last item was the most important."

"I was still up in my own head when we got to the room," Mike remembers with a chuckle. "We hadn't discussed anything about it, so I didn't know what Emily's intentions were until the door closed, when she immediately slipped into my arms and kissed me. It was a very sweet, very gentle kiss, and the moment I felt her lips on mine I grabbed her and held her."

"The kiss was not sexually passionate at first," Emily relates, "but by then we knew each other so well that we didn't need words to explain our desires. Thirty seconds later his tongue was in my mouth and I was suckling on it."

"It was a great kiss," Mike says. "Going from the scene at the house to that kiss...it was water in the desert. I held her so close. I never wanted to let her go. That kiss...it was special."

"What made it special?" the interviewer asks.

"Because these were the first moments of our lives together as a couple -- as a real couple, I mean. We weren't sneaking around behind dad's back anymore, or behind Olivia's back, or behind anyone's back. From now on it was just us, for however long it lasted. And that kiss was the beginning of it all."

"His hands went to my bottom," Emily recalls, her cheeks beginning to pinken, "and he pulled me to him. When he holds me that way, so close against him, I simply melt. And that night I needed him to melt me."

"It was while we were kissing that it hit me," Mike says. "We didn't have to hurry. For the first time, there was no time constraint. If we wanted this to take until dawn and until we both passed out from exhaustion, we could do it. Finally we could just be us."

"The perfect freedom of it," Emily nods. "Yes, that was it, the perfect freedom. We could do what we wanted, how we wanted, for as long as we wanted. I could be as loud as I liked, as lewd as I liked. That night, no one could tell us no. That night we became each other's everything."

"And we didn't hurry," Mike tells us. "We stood just like that, kissing, hands not even moving, for...ten minutes? More? I remember the way her tongue moved on mine as we kissed, how unhurried it was. Most of the time when we kissed it was a lot more frantic than that, but this was just...it was how lovers kiss, real lovers. People who are going to spend the rest of their lives together."

"Again we didn't speak," Emily tells us. "Our hands began to move at the same time, undressing each other. That was slow too, and gentle. I was wearing a sweater, and he slipped his hand underneath it, between it and my undershirt, and rested it against my stomach for the longest time. I've always wondered if he could feel the butterflies I had."

"You were nervous?" the interviewer asks.

"No, excited!" she laughs. "Mike's touch always excites me. He put his hand against me and it could have gone up to my breasts or down between my legs. It could have begun working my sweater off or gone beneath my undershirt. There was so much potential. It was a synecdoche for the night."

"And what did it do?"

"It stayed there for a couple of minutes!" she laughs. "And that was just as wonderful as anything else it might have done."

"I love Emily's body," Mike tells us. "She's a dancer. She's lithe and strong, no fat, perfectly toned, absolutely fit. I could feel her abs through her shirt, each one individually against my hand, just like I could feel her warmth. And I was like...she's mine now. For real. She's not someone else's wife, she's mine."

"Of course, I wasn't sitting still," Emily tells us. "He was wearing a long-sleeve button-down shirt, and I slid my hands behind him and up underneath it, stroking it gently, touching his skin, feeling his muscles move beneath." She grins and says, "I do adore a sexy back, and Mike's is very sexy."

"I slipped my hand a bit further up," Mike says. "I was slowly pushing her sweater up over her boobs. I could tell she was starting to get hot because she was kissing me harder --not faster, not devouring me like we usually did, just firmer, more pressure of her lips on mine. She started nibbling my lips, and then I started nibbling her ears..."

"I adore having my ears played with," Emily tells us with a slight flare of her nostrils. "It sends shivers down my spine when a pair of lips close on my earlobe -- and these were not just any lips, they were my man's lips. My man. I believe I may have moaned a little."

Mike is grinning. "Oh yeah, when I start sucking Emily's earlobes, she has a hard time being quiet. She moaned and she pushed my shirt up further in back so that she had her hand between my shoulder blades -- and then she raked her nails down all the way to my belt."

"That sounds painful," the interviewer observes.

"She didn't gouge me!" Mike laughs. "She just let me feel five fingernails running slowly down my back. It gave me goosebumps."

"I wanted my sweater off," Emily tells us. "I wanted my skin on his, but both of us were determined not to hurry. I wanted it off, but more than that, I wanted Mike to take it off of me, in his own time, without me asking him. And I knew he would. I knew we would do everything to each other. It would simply take hours instead of minutes. And that was why he spent so long thrilling me by suckling and nibbling my earlobes, by kissing down my neck, by letting his teeth scrape flesh in the most sensitive of spots..." An astute observer might notice that Emily is flushing now and her eyes are getting a bit wider, as happens when she becomes excited by a memory.

"She was doing a number on me too," Mike tells us with a chuckle. "She was sucking my neck, nibbling my ears, kissing my cheeks and jaw and chin. Some of those spots are as sensitive for me as they are for her -- must be genetic! It was almost like a game: who can be teased the longest without breaking? And it took a while, but I won the first round."

"Finally the need to feel more of him became too much," Emily recalls with a sly curling of one corner of her mouth. "I began to undo the buttons of his shirt, starting at the bottom and working my way up. I am very good at undressing my man, but I still took a long time to do it."

"Of course I wanted to be naked!" Mike laughs. "I wanted Emily naked. I wanted to be inside her. Once she started undressing me, I wanted it even more -- but then she was taking her own sweet time to do it, which started driving me crazy all by itself! But we still had that game going, the 'see who breaks first' game. So while she was undoing my shirt, I pulled up her sweater and took it off of her. I went slow, but hey, a sweater doesn't have buttons I could take my sweet damned time with. She had an unfair advantage."

Emily giggles as we see her again. "I finally finished with the last button...and then I leaned in and began to lick his nipples. Some men dislike that, but Mike finds it very erotic. When I very deliberately scraped one with my teeth, though, he gasped, pushed me back, and yanked my sweater over my head. I loved that I had driven him over the brink."

"Round two to her. I think Emily got off on making me lose control before I did the same to her," Mike chuckles. "And yeah, she was winning, but I wasn't out of the game yet. I sat down on the bed, feet on the floor, put my hands on her hips, and brought her right in front me. I kissed her tummy through her undershirt, and then I lifted the shirt and kissed the same place."

Emily is smiling. "My skin jumped at the touch of his lips and I gasped."

"She called me a dirty boy," Mike says. "And that was a nice reaction that I liked hearing, so I got busy with my mouth. And her undershirt was getting in the way, so that went too, tugged up and off and tossed across the room."

"Mmmm," Emily coos. "He began to lick my middle, from the bottom of my bra to the top of my jeans. The hotel room was cool, so his mouth left maddening, wonderfully chilly trails behind it. When he got to my navel, he stopped and began using his tongue on it."

"Emily has the sweetest little belly button you can imagine. It's super sensitive too, and when my tongue goes in she starts making the hottest noises, sucking in air between her teeth, holding it, letting out in a little gasp, over and over. Just hearing that sound gets me going."

"Naturally I could only take a few moments of that!" Emily laughs. "I put hands on his chest and pushed him back so that he fell backwards onto the bed."

"Her push was really soft," Mike recollects. "It was more of a suggestion than a shove, but it was a suggestion I took because I was pretty sure what it was leading to."

"Foreplay is fine, but I wanted his cock in my mouth!" Emily says with a grin. "Still, I was in no rush to get his pants off. I lingered, I teased, I kissed the front of his pants. It must have taken me a full minute to pull his zipper down. And of course he hadn't taken off his shoes yet, so I had to stop and remove those, but slowly -- very slowly! He was twitching by the time I began to work his jeans off."

"I was starting to rethink the whole 'go slow' game!" Mike says with a laugh. "I was already so hard I throbbed, and here Emily was pulling my pants down an inch on one side, then pausing to kiss my leg, then two inches on the other side, then kissing me through my underwear. I was like, Fuck, put it in your mouth already!"

Emily's grin is huge and naughty. "Of course I could tell he was losing patience. I wanted him to lose patience! I wanted to make him so horny that he demanded that I satisfy him. I wanted to make him so hard he hurt, because then I could make him feel better." She pauses significantly, eyes shining and cheeks flushing, then adds, "And I did."

"She got my jeans down to my knees, stopping and kissing, touching, licking, every inch of the way. I thought my dick would break. Finally I just started kicking my legs. I remember her laughing at me as she pulled my jeans off my ankles."

Emily is obviously savoring the recollection of her small erotic triumph. "Once I had his jeans off, I didn't want to torture the poor boy anymore...much. I put my mouth on his cock, but I didn't take off his underwear first. I licked up the bulge and then down, I cradled it in my lips and made the cloth wet with my tongue, then I nuzzled his balls. I could feel him twitching and jumping, and I knew he must have been uncomfortable inside his boxer-briefs. I did let his poor, amazing, perfect cock suffer for a bit before I finally pulled his underwear down and off."

"God, getting my underwear off was like getting released from prison!" Mike laughs. "Emily had driven me fucking bonkers with that mouth of hers and she hadn't even touched me directly yet. She won that game, big time. And then she didn't even put me in her mouth right away, she just leaned in so she was looking at me from down by my balls and I could feel her breath on me. She looked into my eyes, looked down at my cock, licked her lips, looked back into my eyes. Finally I was like, 'Fuck, just suck my cock already!''

Emily's smile is huge and delighted. "Well he put it so nicely, how could I refuse? I lifted his cock so it was pointing straight up and then licked up the vein on the underside, slowly, to the crown, then back down again. He made such a happy little sound when I did that! It was a little gasp of relief and delight and joy, and I was so very proud that I could make my love make that sound. And then I went to work."

"It was like a switch flipped in that filthy mind of hers," Mike sighs happily. "She went from teasing me to taking me to the root in one second flat. One instant I was twitching in her hand and the next I was in her throat. I just moaned."

"That was the first time he used my name," Emily says, and the memory is so thrilling that she lifts out of her seat a fraction before settling in again. "Before I had always been 'mom,' even when we were doing wonderful things to each other. But now he said, 'Fuck yes, Emily, just like that.'"

"You obviously enjoyed it," the interviewer tells her.

Emily gives a little sound that is halfway between assent and moan. "Yes. Yes! We were lovers now, a couple, together in every way. Just him using that one word drove it home, made it...made it real in a way that it hadn't been up until then. My old life was gone. Mike was my new life, and I was his. I almost cried from joy."

"She went after me like a wolf on a sheep," Mike tells us. "She fucking attacked my dick, doing shit with her tongue I can't even describe, taking me all the way until she choked, backing off a second, and then taking me just like that again. She was a wild woman. She sucked my cock, she sucked my balls -- and I mean first one, then the other, then both at once, right into her mouth, her tongue just dancing. And then...well, shit, and then."

Emily's face is red and her eyes wide and bright. A couple strands of hair have broken free and have come down over her face, and she knocks them out of the way with a hurried gesture. "And then I pulled my mouth off of his cock and balls and put my lips right around his asshole."

The memory is obviously a pleasant one for Mike. "I was like, 'G-g-g-fuuuuuuuck!'"

Emily is looking very pleased with herself as she giggles, "Mike becomes charmingly incoherent when my tongue is up his ass."

Mike again, and the interviewer asks, "Was this the first time she'd done that?"

"Ummm...second, I think. I'd been doing it to her for a while, and she'd done it back, but I wasn't expecting it then. Her tongue is a natural wonder, brother. I just about went into orbit."

Emily is still giggling. "His cock was jumping in my hand as I stroked him. I knew he couldn't last long with me rimming him and jerking him off, and that was fine. I also knew he would recover fast. I pushed my tongue in deeper and did not let up until he began to spray his cum all over my hand."

"Oh fuck," Mike sighs. "She took that orgasm from me. She wanted it and she took it, just left me wrung out. And then she cleaned me and herself up with her mouth like a good girl should, making eye contact the whole time. I was already getting hard again by the time she finished and went to take off her bra. I helped, and her clothes didn't last long after that."

"Mike wanted to use his mouth on me, so of course I let him," Emily relates. "I love his mouth on me almost as much as I love his cock in me. I was so wet he didn't need to, but obviously I wanted him to."

"I just kinda tossed her onto the bed," Mike says, "She bounced and giggled like a schoolgirl, and then I was between her legs and eating. And of course she started with the dirty talk the moment my lips hit her ''

"I was already so aroused that I knew I couldn't last long," Emily tells us with a delighted sigh. "Mike is far too talented with his mouth for me to have withstood much. And it was so liberating to simply be able to tell him how I felt, as loudly as I wanted, using whatever language I wanted, nothing to hold me back. I begged him to eat my hot, slutty cunt, and did he ever!"

"Emily's filthy talk always winds me up," Mike admits with a smile, "because she only ever curses when I've made her horny. So of course I love hearing it. It's a reward all by itself."

"Mike wanted to go slow on me," Emily tells us, "but I was too horny for that to work. My little pussy was so swollen and sensitive that I was going to come quickly no matter what he did. I lasted when he licked me deep and even when he licked my ass, but the moment his tongue found my clit, I fell to pieces."

"She went up on heels and shoulders, slamming her pussy right into my face and screaming just mindless obscenity, just a bunch of dirty words that weren't sentences or even ideas." Mike pauses and then adds with a cocky grin, "I love it when that happens."

"The climax was short but very...vivid," Emily recalls. "Very intense. It left me trembling in my limbs. And it did nothing to sate me, not even to take the edge off. I wanted Mike inside me, I wanted it immediately, and I wanted it all fucking night long." She grins, and adds in a naughty-girl whisper, "All fucking night."

"We ran through a lot of positions that night," Mike tells us. "Like, a lot. But that first time, that was straight missionary all the way. We needed to be able to look into each other's eyes. We needed to be able to kiss. And I don't care what anybody says, missionary is the most intimate position there is."

"Yes, I wanted Mike on top of me," Emily nods vigorously, her hair bouncing. "I wanted his body between my legs. I wanted his weight on me. After all my teasing, I wanted him in control. I wanted my face against his and I wanted to taste every moan he gave me. When he came inside me I wanted to hear him whisper my name. That was our communion."

"I climbed up on top of her and went right inside her like we'd been doing it for decades," Mike tells us with a dopey grin. "No aiming, no guiding hand, just up and in. She immediately put her heels on the backs of my thighs and I started moving. My face was two inches from hers, our eyes were locked. I could see the pleasure on her face as I went inside her, and I know she could see the same on me. It was perfect."

"Perfect," Emily concurs with a delighted sigh as we see her again. "It was precisely what we both needed. We found our rhythm instantly. I started cursing, as I always do, but he shut me up with a kiss, and that was perfect too. Later that night I would be so loud and so foul-mouthed that our neighbors pounded on the wall, but right at that moment, a kiss was what we both needed more than anything."

"Now that we were in it, we were back to not hurrying," Mike says. "We'd both just come so there was no real pressure. It was a long, slow, just...just painfully intimate."

"Painfully?" the interviewer asks, surprised.

"Not pain pain, but...like...we were doing our best to shut everything out, all the outside, end-of-the-family-maybe-going-to-jail stuff. And we did, mostly, but you can't really forget something like that, not when you know that maybe tonight is the only night you get for a long time. So it was...shit, not painful, what's the word...poignant. It was poignantly intimate."

"I wasn't really thinking about anything but the magnificent fuck Mike was throwing into me!" Emily admits with a laugh. "His cock tends to drive extraneous thoughts out of my brain. And so do his hands and his mouth and his --"

"Yes, I see," the interviewer says dryly.

Emily laughs merrily and teasingly at him. "When he wasn't kissing me, I was still spewing filth, but I can't help it. His cock drives those words out of me too, and so do his hands and his mouth and his --"

Cut to Mike. "She was still swearing, yeah, but I still put my forehead against hers so I could watch her face as I picked up the pace a little. Just a little. And she told me to 'fuck her slut-hole.'"

"Moving together, that's what I remembered best," Emily tells us dreamily. "We were perfectly synced, perfectly in time. I could see in his face that he wanted to go a little faster and I matched his pace on the first thrust. The whole, wonderful night was like that."

"It went on a long time that way," Mike says. "We'd suddenly start going a little faster or a little slower, and we didn't even know whose idea it was. Nobody said speed up or slow down, we just did, wordlessly, like we were two parts of the same machine."

"Of course," Emily tells us with eyes glittering, "sometimes a girl just wants her cunny smashed. And I didn't have to tell him when that was, either. The thought entered my mind and suddenly I was being drilled."

Mike is grinning. "The languid screw is fine, but there comes a time when you need to feel your balls slapping ass, you know?"

"Mmmmmm, yes, he fucked me so perfectly," Emily almost moans. "When he picked up the pace, I howled like a horny little bitch in heat. I wanted him all inside me, my beloved son returning to his first home, claiming ownership of it and of me totally and for good. I wanted to be his slut, his whore, his slave, his goddess, his woman. I wanted to be his everything."

"Emily's pussy is an amazing thing, and what she was doing with it that night was stunning," Mike tells us, still sounding a bit in awe of the experience. "I could feel every little muscle and ripple walking up and down my cock with every thrust, like fingers, like little hands inside her. What she was doing to me was...damn!"

Emily again, smiling a slightly unsettling smile that looks reminiscent of a she-tiger. "I needed his cum. I wanted my own orgasm too, but I needed his. It was his cum in my pussy that was going to make the night."

"She was working me," Mike says. "I didn't feel like she was close so I was holding back, trying to last, thinking of math problems and mowing the lawn and all kinds of unsexy shit. I really needed us to come together. I told her I was close and she said --"

"'Fucking give it to me!'" Emily rasps, looking almost demented. "I needed it so badly! I begged him for it like a slut, for every drop of it, as far inside me as he could put it!"

"And that was it, I wasn't holding back anymore," Mike tells us. "I wanted us to come together, but I have limits."

Emily's face is so red it's almost puce. "And all I needed was that moan that tells me he's there, that groan that comes from his balls and out his mouth. Once I heard that I was right there with him. He slammed into me so hard it almost hurt and I could feel his cock leap inside me, and then I came so hard I wept."

Mike rubs his hand over his face, and when he takes his hand away he is smiling. "It was so sudden, so unexpected. I thought it was just me coming but she was already there. When I felt her orgasm in the middle of mine, I lost my damned mind. I thought I was flying. I felt like the biggest man in the whole world."

Mike pauses for a beat, then goes on, "Isn't it weird? When you're with someone you don't love, like when I was with Hannah, her orgasm felt good to me, like...like we'd accomplished something together, I guess. But when you're with someone you love -- when I'm with Emily -- her orgasm is the only thing that means a damn. And when you give it to her, it's like you're the one who got a present." He pauses, then adds with a grin, "Love is weird, man."

Emily again, looking slightly less mad. "Of course we can never be married, but that fuck made us husband and wife in every way that can ever matter." She pauses, and adds, "And I came so intensely that I felt like I was dying, which is an added bonus!"

The screen goes black once once, and we see the words:

October 19 - January 25

"It was a crazy night," Mike says as he reappears. "We went at it all night long, just tearing into each other. We kept going until we just couldn't anymore, then we passed out, woke up, and went at it again. In the morning we ordered room service, screwed, ate, screwed again. We didn't get going until noon."

The interviewer asks, "At that point, did you and your mother have a discussion about your future?"

"We had lots of discussions about our future. Which aspect of it are you asking about?"

"I suppose the broadest aspect. Whether or not you would stay together now that the family had ended."

"Huh. No, that was one thing we didn't talk about. You'd have needed dynamite and a lot of it to get us apart. Neither of us needed to ask if that was what the other wanted."

Emily again, now looking her usual calm and composed self. "As much as I would have loved to stay in bed with Mike all day, we had things to do. I called in to my boss to tell him that there was a family emergency that would see me out of work for at least a week. Mike couldn't afford to miss that much school so early in the year, but he did arrange to take two days off of classes. Bob had promised to send the police after us, and we needed a lawyer -- and not only that, but I needed someone to handle my end of the impending divorce. In the event, we were quite fortunate in our choice."

"We hired a barracuda in a pantsuit named Ursula Updike," Mike chuckles. "She took care of us."

"We elected to be completely forthright with Ms. Updike." Emily says. "Bob was going to be accusing us of things we had in fact done, so we felt honesty was the best policy. We met her the next morning, and she made no moral judgments, for which I was profoundly grateful. She set about gathering the facts of the case in a most professional manner, and before very long she assured us that we probably had very little to worry about."

We see Bob now. "I contacted a divorce attorney first thing Monday -- well, first thing after I stopped throwing up. He came highly recommended online. His name was Jerry Micheletti. He was an older guy who'd been around the block plenty, so I figured he'd be my best chance for...well, for revenge. Because being honest, revenge is what I wanted."

Olivia now, shaking her head. "God, I did NOT want dad to try to get revenge. I mean, he could probably get it if he really went after it, but he couldn't get it quietly. It would be a news story -- hell, maybe national news. The media loves shit like that. I kept trying to make him see that his revenge would destroy my life and his life, along with mom's and Mike's."

"Do you think he deserved a measure of vengeance?" the interviewer asks.

"Well yeah, of course. He'd gotten the shitty end of the stick. But at the same time, mom and Mike were dumbasses, but they weren't trying to hurt dad or anybody else. Making them suffer would just be dragging this whole ordeal out, and they wouldn't suffer alone."

We see Bob as the interviewer asks, "When did you learn how your wife and your son's affair began?"

"That Monday, the day after I kicked them out," Bob says. "Olivia tried to tell me. She got most of it out, but I was too mad to listen. I guess I didn't let her tell me the whole story for...a week? Maybe a little more."

"And what did you think?"

"I didn't believe it," he says with a shrug. "And not because I didn't think it was true, because who'd make up that story? And of course it fit with everything else I knew, everything I'd observed. So I bought the story. I just couldn't believe how stupid and cruel they'd been since then."

"It didn't give you more sympathy for them?"

Bob shrugs again. "I wasn't in the mood to be sympathetic. I told my lawyer I wanted to hit them with everything I could."

We return to Emily, who says, "Ms. Updike explained that it would almost certainly be possible to convince at least one member of a jury that our encounter with the Visigoths had left us with post-traumatic stress disorder and impaired our judgment. Mike was an adult when our relationship began, so there was no question of child sexual abuse. Furthermore, she explained that both the Minneapolis police department and the courts were particularly busy at that time and would be disinclined to pursue the case vigorously, given that there was no one whom the district attorney could identify as a particular victim."

"How did that make you feel?"the interviewer asks.

"Relieved, as far as it went. However, so much remained up to Bob. If he chose to pursue these charges vigorously, then a scandal was inevitable. Mike and I might not be facing prison time, but our present and future could still be irreparably damaged."

We see Bob now, looking vaguely unhappy. "Olivia harangued me every day about not going to the police about the incest charges. And of course I understood where she was coming from. I wasn't even angry at her anymore about not telling me, because she'd been in an impossible position. But...but I needed to see them pay. I needed it."

"In the end, though," the interviewer says, "you elected to let the matter of incest drop. Why?"

Bob makes an even more dissatisfied face. "Because my lawyer told me to. He'd met with Emily's lawyer to discuss things, of course. He said that what had happened with that bunch of bikers had made Emily and Mike into victims, and it would be hard to convince every member of a 12-person jury to send them to state prison for what they'd done in reaction to it."

Olivia now. "But there was more to it than that. Even I knew dad had almost as much to lose if this thing went public as Mike and mom did. They'd been victims of an unthinkable crime, and any decent lawyer and a lot of psychologists could explain their subsequent actions as PTSD. At least some people in the media would be sure to portray those two in a very sympathetic light, which would mean that they would have to portray dad in an unsympathetic light. At best he'd be the weak loser who'd gotten cucked by his own son, and at the worst he'd be the cold, cruel husband who'd driven his traumatized wife into an incestuous affair. He couldn't win, even if they got convicted and a maximum sentence. He'd always be that guy, and he'd never be able to put it behind him." She pauses, shaking her head sadly, and says, "Thank God he eventually listened."

"Finally I dropped the idea of going to the police," Bob tells us. "But I wasn't happy about it. I'm still not happy about it."

Mike reappears to say, "When we got the news that dad was dropping the incest angle, Emily and I were over the moon. She bought a couple bottles of champagne and we both got hammered, then had sloppy, drunken sex. It was great."

"A tremendous relief," Emily sighs. "Perhaps the greatest relief of my life. And not simply for its implications for Mike's freedom and future and my own, nor even for Olivia's life, even though she had as much to lose as any of us. I also was relieved for Bob."

"Why?" the interviewer asks.

"Because of what it avoided," Emily tells us. "Bob didn't deserve what Ms. Updike would have done to him in court -- what I would have helped Ms. Updike do to him."

"Which is?"

"Bob is a sweet, kind man," she says, again looking very resolute. "I love him still. But if he'd have threatened Mike's freedom or future, I would have portrayed him as a monster of the first order. I would have done everything in my power to destroy him. I would have smiled in the court as Ms. Updike burned him to the ground." One gets the sense that nobody -- nobody -- had best fuck with Emily Larsen's man if they know what's good for them.

"Which left the divorce settlement," Bob tells us as we see him again. "And I didn't get what I wanted there, either. I didn't want to give Emily a damned thing, and I wanted to fight for that position. But Micheletti talked me out of that too."

Back to Emily. "Over the years, I had actually made more money than Bob did most of the time. Bob has a mid-level civil service job, which paid a respectable salary but nothing extraordinary. I had my University professorship, money from dance lessons I provided, and whatever extra I could get from dancing in shows. Neither of us made very much, to be honest, but together we had been comfortable enough. Now that I was starting a new life with Mike, I wanted a fair division of our assets -- nothing more, but most certainly nothing less."

Returning to Bob, he says, "Given that I wasn't going after the incest angle with the police, Micheletti said we shouldn't bring it up in divorce court. Without that, there was nothing to hit Emily with. From the court's perspective, even if I'd have proven infidelity with a person or persons unspecified, it would just be a run-of-the-mill divorce case. And then he went on to explain that if I chose to go a more contentious route, then her lawyer would have no choice but to attack me in court with everything she had."

"Had you done anything to make you worry about that?"

"Well I didn't think I had," Bob says, "but Micheletti explained that a good lawyer could make the Dalai Lama look like Jeffrey Dahmer in court -- and Emily had a damned good lawyer . Everything I'd ever done or said would be twisted and construed in the worst possible light. He said, and I quote, 'I don't care how lily-white your soul is; when a good divorce lawyer gets done with you, your own mother won't take your calls.'"

"What was your reaction to that?"

"I was fucking infuriated," Bob says. "But that didn't mean he wasn't right. It ate me up inside, but by the end of November I'd been forced to back down and agree to...an amicable settlement."

"I am grateful for Bob's eventual decision," Emily tells us. "Given what had happened, it was the best we could have hoped for."

Mike again. "We spent a few days in the hotel, but it wasn't like we could live there. A couple days later we rented a truck, went back to the house, and got all our personal property. We were careful not to take anything that dad could contest in court. We got clothes and personal items only."

"Was that a difficult thing to do?" the interviewer asks.

"It was a weird trip, throwing 18 years of our lives into a few boxes," Mike nods. "But...but already the place didn't feel like my home anymore. I had memories in every corner, but Emily couldn't be there anymore, so it was just a house. Home was where she was."

We see Emily now. "We quickly found a small apartment together. One-bedroom flats are certainly affordable on a university professor's salary. It was in a quiet building in northeast Minneapolis." She pauses, smiles naughtily, and adds, "And it had excellent soundproofing."

"By the end of the week, we were moving in," Mike tells us. "We slept on the floor the first night because we didn't have any furniture, but that weekend we went shopping. It was pretty intense, setting up a whole household like that. It was fun though, because we made the decisions together. The house had been kind of...boring, so for the apartment we went more modern, brighter colors, that kind of thing. Big, sturdy bed that we had a lot of fun breaking in."

"Did that change your outlook on things?" the interviewer asks.

Mike nods vigorously. "Yeah it did. In the space of a week, I'd gone from living in a room in my parents house, the room I'd had since my earliest memories, to living in a new apartment with the woman I loved. That'll give you whiplash. But at the same time, it was...like I was an adult now. Really an adult. When I came back home at night, it was to a lover and a partner in a place that we shared. We could do what we wanted, when we wanted. We didn't have to hide anything. We spent every night in each other's arms, and the first thing we saw when we woke up every morning was each other. I loved it. I loved every second of it."

"I loved our little place together," Emily sighs happily. "The layout was inconvenient and the bathroom sink was forever clogging, but we were so happy there. For the first time, I learned what it was to truly live an independent life with someone I loved more than life itself. Every moment of it was joyful."

"There were no growing pains?" the interviewer asks. "Most relationships have them,"

"Oh, there were," Emily assures us. "There were disagreements, contention, the occasional fight. But even those were joyful, because they meant we were coming together as a couple in a way we hadn't been able to until then. A relationship without those sorts of friction points is too shallow to be worth anything anyway. Besides, we made it a point never to go to bed angry. Every conflict we had only brought us closer together when it was over."

"Just like any other couple?"

"You cannot imagine the happiness we found in being just like any other couple."

"We were learning how to be together, piece by piece," Mike says. "And there were some bumpy spots, but nothing that made us doubt what we had. We were just learning to be a unit. I remember being worried about the holidays, but they turned out great."

"Thanksgiving was our first holiday together as a couple," Emily tells us. "It wasn't the grand meal we normally had, but it was wonderful. Mike helped me prepare it, and after we ate I curled up in his arms on the sofa with a glass of wine. We watched Netflix. It was beautiful."

"Did you stay in touch with Olivia?"

Emily's face darkens a bit. "At first, yes."

"Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Olivia spent some time with us," Mike says. "I think it was mostly because things were getting pretty bad with dad around then. At least that was what we thought from the hints she dropped. Emily and I didn't feel right asking too many questions. She came over a couple of days before Christmas and we exchanged presents, had dinner, hung out for a while. It was awkward, but it was really good to see her, too. I hoped that we could still be part of each other's lives."

Emily once more. "Olivia's attitude toward us started to change around Christmas. Up until then she had seemed eager to see us, as though she was reassuring herself that we were still part of her life. After, though, she seemed angrier. Within a couple of weeks, she'd stopped talking to Mike, and shortly thereafter I had my last conversation with her for a year and a half."

"Was something specific said?" the interviewer asked.

"No, not on either of our parts. Bob was having a very difficult time, and I think Olivia went from blaming Mike and I for that, to blaming us for destroying the family, to blaming us for being in love." She pauses, then says simply, "Divorce is hard on everyone in a family. We each cope in our own way."

"Olivia cutting us off hit Emily hard," Mike says. "Especially because Olivia never actually said what she was doing or why. She just stopped answering her phone, stopped answering texts, emails, social media posts. She just dropped us. Of course it was hard on her mother." He pauses and the corner of his mouth curls into a smile. "But then, she didn't have long to focus on that."

Emily again, smiling enormously. "On January 25th, I learned that I was pregnant."

The screen goes dark.

Instead of the expected credits, against the dark screen we hear Emily's voice. "When I learned I was pregnant with Mike, I felt trepidation for the changes it would wreak in my life. When I became pregnant with Olivia, I was too overwhelmed by school, already having an infant to care for, and making the marriage to Bob work to have a happy reaction. When I learned I was carrying Mike's child, I screamed for joy."

Emily appears again onscreen. Her hair is shorter and her makeup is subtly different, and she now wears a gray silk blouse. She looks very happy.

"I was nearing 40," she continues. "We had been having frequent unprotected sex for more than half a year by that point. I was not yet perimenopausal, but I knew my fertility was very low. I simply assumed that a child was out of the question. Life, it seems, is full of wondrous surprises."

The screen goes dark and we see the familiar white font:

Folie a Deux

Epilogue

Something new happens now. For the first time, we see two of our subjects onscreen together. Mike is now next to Emily, and both look very happy indeed. He too has changed. He sports a nascent beard and he wears a red shirt with a gray tie. "Right after we moved in together, Emily and I finally talked about children," he tells us. "She didn't think it was in the cards, and I was OK with that. I really was. But when we actually started having the conversation, I realized that I wanted kids with her. I really, really did. And if it didn't happen, it didn't happen. But I really wanted it to."

Emily watches Mike as he speaks. Her eyes sparkle and she smiles when she hears his voice. Her body language shows something that may be unexpected based on how she presents herself the rest of the time: she is deferring to Mike, letting him take the lead. When he is done talking, she says, "I began to have morning sickness around the middle of January. It wasn't every day, however, and it had been so long since the last time I'd had to deal with the signs of pregnancy that I'd rather forgotten them. It wasn't until the third week, when I missed my period, that I knew something was happening."

"Are you regular?" the interviewer asks -- it is the female interviewer from the odd-numbered episodes.

"I was, yes. I was very seldom off by more than a day, so when I was three days late and I was nauseous in the mornings, I bought a test."

"Did you tell Mike right away?"

"Not yet. I knew how much he wanted a child, and I didn't want to dash his hopes. The home test came back a clear positive, so I went to the doctor the next day and confirmed it." Her eyes sparkle. "I think it is the happiest I have ever been in my life. I was at work when I got the call from the doctor's office, and I screamed so loudly people came running."

"People at work didn't know who the father was, of course?"

"Oh no, of course not! I told them I had been trying to have another child, and the father was someone very special to me whom I would not be marrying."

"Given her inability to lie," Mike adds dryly, "sticking to the truth is the best option for her."

"I am aware of my limitations," Emily says with a prim smile, leaning into Mike a bit more.

"Mike, how did you feel about it when she told you?" the interviewer asks.

"I jumped up and down like a maniac and pumped my fist!" he laughs. "And then I took my girl to bed and we didn't get out until the next morning."

"Were you frightened? Many prospective parents are."

"Then I was just excited. Terror came later. But I knew I had the world's greatest mom by my side. If I screwed up, she'd catch me."

Emily beams at the compliment.

"Did you tell Bob and Olivia?" the interviewer asks.

"Not dad," Mike said, "We tried to tell Olivia. We sent texts, PMs, emails, voice mails. She didn't answer."

We now see Olivia. She has changed her hair color again, this time to a rich auburn that looks so good on her that it's easy to forget she's a natural blonde. She is wearing a green blouse with a tasteful gold braided necklace. "I got their messages. I didn't answer them because it made me even more pissed at them, and I was already really pissed at them."

"Why?" the interviewer asks.

"Because things had gotten really bad in my life and I blamed them, even for things that weren't their fault. Plus I thought Mike knocking mom up was disgusting. I thought about birth defects and all that. I thought they were gonna spawn a little mutant. Turns out there's not nearly as much risk as the hype says, but I didn't know that.""

"What were things like at your home?"

"The first couple weeks after the big blowup were rough as hell. I was still crying myself to sleep most nights. And dad wasn't making it any easier, because...well, it had wrecked him. Just destroyed him. And I got it, because it would have done the same to me if I was in his place. How the hell do you deal with that?"

"How did you deal with your side of things?" the interviewer asks.

She shrugs. "I did the best I could. Once the first shock of it wore off, there was this walking-on-eggshells tension in the house all the time. Dad was constantly angry. He was careful not to take it out on me -- he tried really hard. But sometimes he'd go down the basement and just yell. Like that bullshit primal scream therapy, right? Only he wasn't doing it for therapy, it was just a release valve so that his head wouldn't explode. One time I came home and there was a hole in the kitchen wall from where he'd kicked it."

"Did you ever feel threatened?"

"Oh no, it wasn't like that. My dad would never harm a hair on my head, I knew that. But I also knew he had so much bottled-up rage that it was tearing him apart."

Bob appears now, wearing a mint green Oxford shirt that makes his ice-blue eyes stand out startlingly. "Olivia told me I should see a therapist. I even tried a couple of sessions, but I guess I wasn't a very good patient. For therapy to work, you need to want to let go of what's messing you up, and I didn't. I really, really wanted to hold onto my rage."

"Why?" the interviewer asks.

"Because it was all I had left. When you lose your whole life except for one thing, that thing becomes pretty damned precious to you. Even if it is poison."

'And your anger was poisonous?"

"Anger usually is."

"How did you cope with that?"

Another sardonic smile plays across Bob's lips. "'Maladaptively,' as therapists might say. I started drinking more often...a lot more often. I stopped going to the gym. I sort of fell apart for a while there."

"It was killing me to see dad," Olivia sighs. "He tried to hide his drinking from me, but I knew. He was drunk a lot of the time when he was home. He'd always been in good shape, but he started putting on weight, eating like shit and and drinking too many calories."

"That must have been difficult to watch," the interviewer says.

"Yeah. Yeah, it was. He just sank into himself. I had to take over washing clothes and cleaning the house or it wouldn't have gotten done. There were never meals cooked, except when I made them, and my cooking is...um...unspectacular. He got rid of the old bed and bought a new one, but most of the time he'd just pass out on the sofa."

"Of course Olivia tried to talk to me," Bob says. "Friends and family all tried, but I suppose I needed to sit with the anger and its consequences before I could...well, not let it go, but begin to use it for other things. It took a while."

"Thanksgiving was a disaster," Olivia says. "Mom has always made that meal. I called her and she tried to talk me through it, but Christ, it was awful. What I didn't burn, I undercooked. It was, um, a learning experience."

"Olivia had things pretty hard there for a while, and losing the house didn't make it any easier," Bob informs us. "The house was worth a lot and the equity value we had was worth way more than what we still owed. I knew Emily was going to be awarded 50% of it, and I couldn't afford to live there anyway on just my salary. So I went ahead and put it on the market, just to rip the band-aid off. Might as well get it over with."

Olivia again. "But that meant that in addition to losing my family unit and basically losing my mother and my brother -- and kind of losing my dad for a while -- I was also losing the only home I ever knew. We moved to half a duplex about a mile and a half away so I could still go to the same school, but it was a different neighborhood, and not as nice a one. The new place was pretty small and not in the best shape. It felt like everything was just flying to pieces around me."

"How did you react to that?" the interviewer asks.

"I focused on the only things I could control: school, athletics, activities. My grades held steady. They were my life raft."

"And you blamed your mother and brother for the chaos in your life?"

"More and more every day. I think I would have anyway, but being around dad added to it. Rage can be infectious too. I never got to the anger level he had, but it certainly got to the point where I didn't want anything to do with mom and Mike. That was the big reason I never even congratulated them on their first pregnancy, not even when the baby was born. I still regret that."

"So it was just the two of us," Emily says, holding Mike's hand and leaning lightly against him. "I suppose we ought to have expected that."

"Olivia always got caught in the middle," Mike nods. "It was never by design, but she always wound up getting yanked in two different directions. But then I guess a lot of children of divorce do, even more normal divorces."

"It made me sad," Emily says, gazing at Mike's hand as she squeezes it. "All I could do was hope that she would come around eventually. I wanted our baby to know their aunt."

"And how did the pregnancy go?" the interviewer asked.

"Very smoothly," Emily says with a smile. "There were no complications. On August 23rd I gave birth to Robert Shane Larsen, a healthy, happy baby boy."

We are shown a picture of Emily reclining in a hospital bed, looking exhausted but elated and holding a tiny bundle of a human being on her chest. Mike is leaning in, staring in adoration at the new person he helped create.

"You named him after your ex-husband," the interviewer observes as we return to the couple in the studio.

Mike nods."We both wanted that. It wasn't like we ever expected there to be a relationship there, but..." He pauses and shakes his head. "It's a good name."

"You didn't expect Bob to want to see your child?" the interviewer asks.

Emily glances at Mike to see if he wants to answer the question. Only a brief moment passes before she says, "We knew how he felt. Besides, by then Mike and I had begun to make plans to leave the country."

We return to Bob. "By summer I was a wreck. I'd put on thirty pounds and I was on the edge of losing my job because of my drinking and general level of self-pity. Olivia was going to be leaving soon to go to school and I felt like I didn't have anything to live for." He pauses for a proud smile and adds, "And then my girl stepped up to the plate, same as she always does."

Olivia now. "My scholarship to BC had come through and I was getting ready to get the fuck out of there. Autumn couldn't come fast enough for me. I'd really done my best to pull dad out of his funk, but man, he was just stuck so hard. By like March I'd given up, just letting him drink himself stupid every night. I didn't feel like I could do any more to help. But then after school ended, I was like, fuck it we'll give it one more shot. If it doesn't take, he's on his own."

"What did you do?" the interviewer asks.

"It was the middle of June," Olivia recalls. "Just about a year to the day since it had all started between mom and Mike. I caught dad one day before he started drinking and I sat down with him. I told him I loved him. I told him that he wasn't to blame for what Mike and mom had done, but he was to blame for being the human mess he was now. I said he could either keep blaming them for his life spiraling down the shitter, or he could get up and show them what kind of man he really was inside. And I told him I wanted to be proud of him again." She shrugs. "I dunno, I didn't say anything very special."

Bob now. "I was in a deep, dark place. I didn't see a light. And then the person I loved most in the world told me she knew I was better than that. She told me that I was worth being proud of. It was what I needed to hear, when I needed to hear it. I dumped the booze, went back to the gym, and turned things around."

"Just like that?" the interviewer asks.

"I'm not saying it wasn't hard, but I was more dependent on alcohol than addicted. It was a coping mechanism. Olivia pulled me back before I became an alcoholic." He smiles. "Whenever I get too down on myself, I remember that I must have done something right with her, because she turned out great."

Back to Emily and Mike. Emily says, "I minored in French when I was in college, and Bob minored in Spanish. From a very early age, we raised our children to speak both those languages. Olivia excelled in Spanish."

"And I loved French," Mike finishes her thought. "I'd always been involved in things like French clubs and stuff, so when I got to college I knew French was going to be my minor, like Emily. After Robbie came, we started talking about leaving the US. Dad hadn't told the cops about us, but we were one slip-up away from being exposed by somebody who wouldn't pull their punches."

"During the French Revolution," Emily says, "most incest laws were abolished. All incest laws were formally abolished in 1810. Incest between consenting adults has been legal in France for more than two centuries."

"So we started to look for opportunities there," Mike says. "In my sophomore year I found out about a program the French government runs: excellent foreign students in certain specialties are sometimes invited to finish their schooling in France in return for signing a contract to work for the government for a certain number of years after graduation...and it just so happened that hydrology was of the areas where they needed people. I was rocking a 4.0 at a good school, so I applied."

Emily says, "And I reached out to an old friend. Jack Yates was one of my first students when I took my teaching position at the University of Minnesota. He was wonderful and he would have succeeded without my help, but I took him under my wing and mentored him. I even introduced him to the man he eventually married. He had moved to Paris and was teaching at Centre de Dance du Marais. Of course he didn't owe me a thing, but he very generously gave me a glowing recommendation for an upcoming opening at his school. I applied and sent video of various things I'd done."

"Long story short, we both got what we were after," Mike tells us. "I'd start school at Universite Paris Saclay in the fall of my junior year, and Emily would start teaching dance at Marais at the same time."

We go back to Olivia, who says, "I had cut mom and Mike out of my life. I'd started by understanding them, but eventually I'd worked my way around to blaming them for everything that had gone wrong. I'd convinced myself that, regardless of what had been done to them, they chose to fall in love, that they each made the choice to develop feelings for someone they absolutely should not have developed feelings for. I knew I was smarter than that." She grins sheepishly. "And then I developed feelings for someone I absolutely should not have developed feelings for."

"Who was that?" the interviewer asks.

"On my second day of classes at Boston College, I walked into my English Lit class, took one look at the professor, and fell head-over-heels in love. And that happens all the time in college, students getting crushes on professors, and it's no big deal. Except she took one look at me and fell just as hard."

"She? So you discovered you were gay?"

"No, that's the thing. I'm not gay. I've kissed a few girls when I was drunk at parties, but that was always because there were meathead guys cheering us on. I had never, ever had sexual feelings about a girl or woman until I saw her-- and then I had nothing but sexual feelings for her. I've never felt attracted to another woman before or since, but when love hits you, it doesn't ask your opinion."

A brief black screen announces in white letters, The professor in question has obtained a legal injunction to prohibit the makers of this documentary from using her name or image.

Back to Olivia. "So yeah, there were three reasons for me not to get into this. First, she was a woman, and not only was I not gay, neither was she. Second, she was my professor at the time, teaching classes I would be in. And third, she was married to an assistant dean and had three kids. The oldest was 15. So we had every single reason not to fall in love, and none of those reasons mattered at all to me or to her. We made love for the first time in her classroom a few days later, and it was just frenzied. She was my first grown-up, adult love, and what I felt made me feel completely out of control. It was the same for her. It was terrifying and thrilling all at once."

"So just what your mother and brother must have felt."

"Ooooh, irony," Olivia laughs. "Yes, exactly that, not that I was even thinking of them at the time. Anyway, she occupied my thoughts and every second I could manage to spend with her. For six months there was nothing but her -- though she did insist I keep up with my grades and lacrosse, which meant that at least one of us was thinking a little."

"And it was a serious relationship? Not just sex?"

"Yeah, it was very serious. We talked about a future. We talked about her leaving her husband. We talked about me being a 'cool stepmom' to her kids. It's nuts how seriously both parties in a love affair can take pillow talk."

"What happened?"

"For six months we were each other's everything. And then her husband walked in on us in a...very compromising numerical position, shall we say. And that was that."

"She didn't leave her husband for you?"

Olivia laughs again. "When confronted by stark reality, silly dreams evaporate pretty quickly. No, what we both thought was the truest of true love was a mutual infatuation, nothing more. Turns out she wanted what she had with her husband and family. Not that it mattered in the end. They divorced and she moved to another state and another professorship. I cried for two weeks straight."

"And then?"

"And then I climbed down off my high horse and called mom."

Mike looking happy and Emily looking delighted. Emily says, "I had my daughter back. She came over on her first night back in town for the summer and we had dinner. She met her nephew and heard all about our plans to move to France."

Cut to Olivia, who enthuses, "I LOVE ROBBIE!"

"What was it like, spending time with them like that after so long apart?" the interviewer asks.

"It was a little weird at first. The oddest thing was how mom had become a sweet, obedient little wifey to Mike. I had grown up with her being not submissive to dad at all, but with Mike she was a different person, kinda 1950s almost. At first I was like, what the fuck? But mom was happier than I've ever seen -- well, I was gonna say happier than I've ever seen her, but I think she was happier than I've ever seen anyone."

"What do you think caused that change?"

"Well who knows, right? But I think she probably was always like that, or always wanted to be like that, but dad is more of a 'meet in the middle' kind of guy. She couldn't be the way she wanted to be with him. With Mike -- OK look, thinking about my brother this way is weird and it's making me throw up in my mouth a little, but he's the kind of guy a woman can rely on to take the lead." She pauses and adds, "Don't tell him I said that. Tell him I said he's a colossal goofball."

We hear the interviewer stifle a chuckle, then ask, "So her personality completely changed?"

"Oh no. She's still a ferocious woman. She just gets to be a ferocious woman who's submissive in her relationship, just like Mike gets to be a sweetheart -- and I mean it, do not tell him I said that -- who's dominant in his relationship. They're perfect for each other, they really are. I'm happy for them." She pauses, then adds enthusiastically, " And them moving to France gave me an excuse to visit freakin' France! And someplace to crash for free when I'm there."

Back to Emily and Mike. Mike tells us, "So my bratty little sister was back in our lives. Only she wasn't the little brat I knew from a year and a half before. She was...kinda awesome, actually. She was someone I wanted to spend a lot more time with and get to know better."

"After that, she did spend a lot of time with us during the summer." Emily says happily. "She almost forced Mike and I to go out on frequent date nights so she could babysit Robbie."

"She spoiled our son," Mike laughs.

"Only a little," Emily replies with a grin.

"Rotten. Robbie adores her. And...yeah, she's one of my favorite people in the world now. I wouldn't have called that one when I was in high school."

To Bob now. "I'd dug myself a deep hole at work, so I had to bust hump to get out of it. It was worth it though -- I like what I do, and it's a worthwhile job that I wanted to keep. And...well, things developed."

We now meet someone new: a black woman in her mid-30s. She is lovely in a quiet, unassuming sort of way, and the way her eyes dance when she smiles gives an impression of keen intelligence married to a friendly demeanor. She wears a bright yellow dress that looks very good against her dark skin.

Below her face appear the words Ayisha Clarke-Larsen.

She tells us, "I met Bob about three or four years before his divorce. We worked on different floors of the same building, and we saw each other once or twice a week in the hall or at the coffee shop. He was such a sweet guy, and I looked forward to the times we'd run into each other. We always spent a few minutes talking, or sometimes we'd eat lunch together. I was interested right from the first."

"Did he encourage that interest?" the interviewer asks.

"No!" Ayisha laughs. "I tried to hide it. I knew he was married, and neither of us are the kind to want an affair. When his troubles began I basically didn't see him for eight months. I thought he was ducking me. And then one day I ran into him at a grocery store and we got to talking. He told me he was single now and I asked him out then and there."

We now see Bob and Ayisha together in the studio like Mike and Emily. The chemistry between them is immediately obvious, even without taking into account the fact that Ayisha is enormously pregnant. The yellow of her dress compliments both Bob's blue eyes and his green shirt, and one gets the sense that Ayisha is the sort of person who thinks about things like that.

Bob says, "People had been pressing me to get back out there, and I'd had a few dates since I pulled myself back together, but Ayisha wasn't like any of them. I knew there was something there right away. We've never looked back."

Ayisha holds up her left hand, where a ring glitters on her third finger. "We were married a year later."

"How are things going?" the interviewer asks.

Ayisha looks down at her gravid belly and says with a smile, "Great."

"I never expected to be a father again," Bob says, "Certainly not at my age. But I can't wait. We're talking about having one more, too."

"How do you feel about Emily and Mike now?" the interviewer asks.

Bob pauses and considers his words, finally saying, "Getting to where I am now took a lot of effort, a lot of struggle. For me, for my situation, part of getting over what they did was that I had to kill them, in here." He taps his chest. "I don't hate them anymore. I'm not giving them that kind of energy because they don't deserve it. But I haven't forgiven them. Ayisha keeps telling me I should, but...I'm not there."

Ayisha speaks up to explain, "I've never met them. What they did is...incomprehensible to me. It's so foreign that I can't understand it. But like they say, forgiveness isn't about the person who wronged you, it's about you. It's about letting the pain go and moving on with your life. And...I don't think I'm telling you to forgive, because that's a decision only you can make. I think I'm just saying you'll be happier if you do, and I want you to be happy. All the time."

Bob smiles as he gazes at his wife. "I know, babe."

Olivia now, who enthuses, "Ayisha is just the best, she's so smart and funny, and they're so good together. I've never seen my dad this happy. And in a few weeks I'm gonna have a little sister!"

"How did your college career go after the end of your affair?" the interviewer asks.

"Great. I mean, you know, ups and downs, but overall it's been an amazing experience."

"Any more love affairs?"

Olivia laughs. "No. There have been a few guys, some kind of serious, some not, but I'm not ready for a commitment. There's a whole lot of men I've got to burn through before I settle down."

"So what's next for Olivia?"

"I'm graduating in a few weeks with a bachelor's in psychology. I have my master's program lined up in LA. I visit France three or four times a year to see mom, Mike, Robbie, and Claire."

We now see a video clip of Emily and Mike sitting on a blanket in the Bois de Vincennes in Paris on a fine summer day. Emily is laying out a picnic lunch while three-year-old, brunet Robbie, looking much like his namesake grandfather except for the wild hair he inherited from his mother, runs excitedly in a circle with a bubble wand in his hand, leaving iridescent globes in his wake. Mike holds up an adorable blonde infant girl who looks to be about a year old and pretends to nibble her bootie-clad toes, much to her evident delight.

In a voiceover, Emily tells us, "Claire Suzanne was born in Paris on May 7th. She's a very happy little girl, and the sweetest little thing in the whole world. I admit I might be biased in my assessment."

We see the couple in the studio now, and Mike tells us, "We got here in a weird way, but we're a family. We're happy in our own unique fashion."

"Thus giving the lie to Tolstoy," Emily interjects with a smile.

"What's life like in France?" the interviewer asks. "Do you live openly?"

"France is lovely," Emily says, "as are the French. As far as living openly...we do not live in hiding."

"Yeah," Mike says with a nod. "Incest is legal here so nobody's going to come after us for what we are, but, like, it's still taboo."

"The French are far more cosmopolitan about matters of the heart than Americans are," Emily puts in, "but is certainly true that incestuous relationships are not fully accepted by society."

"We've been really careful with who we've told," Mike tells us. "And I think it being legal here does help people to accept us, or at least not condemn us. We've lost a couple friends over it, but we have a group of people we can be honest with. That's worth the challenges that come with it."

"So with that in mind," the interviewer asks, "why agree to this documentary? Your story is now out there for everyone to see."

"Well...it was time," Mike tells us. "Over the past few years we've been active with online and in-person support groups for people in incest relationships, in France and elsewhere. Some places it's legal, most not. Even where it is legal, people live in the shadows. That has to change. Maybe this is a first step."

"So you're civil rights pioneers?"

Mike snorts derisively and Emily shakes her head firmly. "No, we are not," she says. "We are merely a family who decided to take a stand. We know we will face backlash for this, but we also know that nothing gets better unless people put themselves in that kind of jeopardy. Our story, with us explaining how we got here while also accepting our mistakes and flaws, may help put a human face on what society still considers a 'freak show.' We are not freaks. We are only people who love each other and we deserve the same consideration as anyone else."

"Why you, though?" the interviewer asks.

"Why not us?" Emily counters. "If not us, who?"

"And maybe things won't get better for us," Mike nods seriously, "but if enough people step out of the shadows, then they'll get better down the line for a lot of people. That's how it always works."

"When I was young," Emily says, "homosexuality was still taboo. Not gay marriage -- the very fact of being homosexual was taboo. It was literally considered a mental illness. Now gay couples have all the same rights as heterosexuals. This is simply a different battle in the same war. I never particularly wanted to be in the vanguard in that war, but I taught my children never to back down from a just cause."

"That's true," Mike says, squeezing Emily's hand and gazing at her adoringly, "she did. And we have to live our truth. It's all anyone can do."

"So now what?" the interviewer asks. "More kids?"

"Oh, no," Emily laughs. "At my age it is rather too late for that."

"You're still having periods," Mike points out.

"They've become less frequent and less regular, darling," Emily explains. "I'm perimenopausal. I simply have to be content with four wonderful, amazing children. I think I can manage."

We now see a series of still photographs accompanied by captions.

The first photo is a professional portrait of Bob and Ayisha. His arm is around her and they are both gazing down at the newborn baby she is cradling.

The caption reads: Bob Larsen and Ayisha Clarke-Larsen had a baby girl, whom they named Dyanna Iris. Mother and child are doing well.

Next is a picture of a beaming Olivia in her graduation cap and gown, holding up her diploma.

We are told, Olivia Larsen graduated cum laude from Boston College, and will begin the Master's Program in Child and Developmental Psychology at the University of Southern California in the autumn.

Last is a selfie of Emily and Mike in a bathroom. Emily holds up a home pregnancy test with a positive result; she holds her other hand to her face, which bears an expression of exaggerated, open-mouth astonishment. Mike is behind her, one arm around her waist and holding up the phone with the other. His head is on her shoulder, and he looks as delighted as it is possible for a man to look.

Below appear the words, Three weeks after filming of this documentary concluded, Emily Larsen learned that she is pregnant. This will be her fifth child, and her third with her son Mike.

Dark screen, against which appears:

This has been Folie a Deux.

Credits roll.

