Arthur
He's my son.
I stroked his leg gently, the other hand braced on his side. Out of my mouth came a stream of meaningless comforting words.
"Okay, okay. That's good. Good job, baby. Keep going. Keep moving. Shh. I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"
He gasped, mouth open and gulping for air. He grunted and pushed back onto me.
My pretty baby. My own flesh and blood.
I leaned in closer. My tongue traced his forehead.
"Yes, God, yes!" he exclaimed. "Keep going!"
"Hush."
"It's so good, Daddy."
I make myself stop, hips quivering with the effort. "Arthur," I muttered hoarsely.
He stared at me. "Arthur," he repeated.
That doesn't make it any better. I couldn't—I can't—lie to myself that the boy gasping and writhing beneath me was my son. It was my son's virginity that I was taking, with sickly selfishness, my eyes shut, buried in the pillow, grunting, pushing further and further in, knowing that with every thrust I was losing a part of myself, a part of myself that still had some sense of morality or civilized society.
He bit down on my shoulder to stifle a cry as he reached his finish on my stomach. I sobbed and hated myself.
I groaned, clutched his arm in a bruising grip at my climax.
No turning back now, I thought with a calm, existential finality. I rested heavily on top of him, breathing as if I was dying. Alfred's fingers trailed my shoulder blade.
"Thank you," he whispered roughly into my ear. "Thank you, Arthur."
My emotions swirled. A powerful, painful guilt that made my stomach ache warred with a decadent pleasure in the fundamentally wrong and indecent.
He is my son. Curled against my chest, slim and sweaty and sated. A remnant of myself inside him, made of the same stuff as the blood that we share.
I nuzzled my mouth on his hair, and I shut my eyes.
"I'm so sorry," I whispered.
"Don't be," he whispered back, and then kissed me. Part of me wasn't sorry, the part that wanted to pretend this wasn't a problem, that, as wrong as it was, we could make it right. But, part of me was guilty. Guilty, guilty, guilty. I am the adult. I should know better. I shouldn't let him do this to me.
I tell myself this every time. Whenever I am in him, or he is in me, or we are touching each other, or feeling each other with tongues and teeth, I tell myself to stop. And I keep doing it anyway.
Because, Alfred always smiles at me. He murmurs, "thank you," or "keep going," or "please."
And so I keep going. And so I'm going to keep going. And only when the authorities come knocking on the door can I see myself stopping. Sometimes I think that I'm hoping for them to. Then, Alfred laughs and kisses my shoulder and I know that I'm lying to myself.
