Love in the Jungle

All characters represented in this work are wholly fictional, and over the age of eighteen.

All characters represented in this work are wholly fictional, and over the age of eighteen.

With various layovers included, it was an almost 24 hour travel schedule, truly the least-convenient last-minute return trip ever booked. Several times amidst the pains and pangs of air travel, I questioned what we were doing. It didn't quite make logical sense why we would possibly need to get home that badly, but the urge was nevertheless overwhelming.

It was stronger than education, or professional development, or even interest in what was happening to us. It was as strong as the growing desire, the craving I felt for my mother's body. Several times during the flights, I found my hand touching her leg, caressing it, rising up to her crotch.

More often than not, it found a willing, wet vagina waiting for me through the fabric. She kept her legs spread for me, eager and open, until I reminded myself we were in a crowded 737, and it wasn't appropriate to finger my mother mid-flight. Each time, I got a little further before reluctantly withdrawing despite our earlier conversation.

It was a relief, therefore, after almost a full day of travel to find ourselves back in Minnesota. Dehydrated, aroused, very tired. A breeze guided us into the family bathroom stall for a brief fuck, bending my mother over the changing table to ram into her, spilling my jizz in her tight hole once again.

Emerging, we realized there was just a strong AC vent overlooking the concourse- but we were both too tired to truly make much of a deal about it.

We made it to the car with my mother's pussy dripping with my sperm. I knew there was a sparse possibility of her actually getting pregnant, that couples tried for years to conceive (and they usually weren't even blood relatives), but I couldn't keep the niggling possibility from the back of my mind. Had this trip ruined our lives?

I stuck a thumb through my wedding collar, and pursed my lips ruefully as the light of streetlamps flashed past us. The circlets were like links of a chain, binding my mother and I together, keeping us as a bonded pair. As certain as a set of manacles, but significantly more pleasurable.

That night, we forced ourselves to sleep apart. Abigail, struggling to pick up the pieces of Dr. Waters, huddled in a pile of blankets, alone in the master bedroom with the lock steadfastly bolted (I promise, I only tried the door once). I similarly barricaded the door to my own room, perhaps more for myself than for her, our bodies ceaseless in expressing their desires but forced to remain separate.

Periodic bursts of cold wind blew through the house, mixing with the sound of clinking stone as if our collars had impacted upon one another (despite the physical distance between us).

- - -

- - -

I fished my phone out of the covers- two forty-five in the morning. I sighed, shouldering the blankets around myself as I opened theMessagesapp and tapped out a message to my mother, squinting against the near-blinding light in the predawn darkness.

You up?I cursed inwardly.I mean, are you awake?I clarified hastily. For a moment, the messages hovered, unread, but just like me, it seemed she wasn't able to rest.

More awake than I'd like to be.She replied.

If it's not a virus, what do you think it could be?I queried, picking up on the airport conversation I'd been replaying in my head all day.Perhaps some sort of spiritual malaise? The temple obviously meant something to those people.I almost laughed out loud even voicing (or, you know, typing) the idea of it. Our family had never been religious, and the idea felt far-fetched as soon as I hitsend, but someone needed to suggest it.

I watched as speech bubbles appeared, then disappeared, then appeared again.

I can't disprove it.She stated, and after a moment followed up:That would certainly fall under the umbrella ofwild shit. I paused, fingers above the screen, then started to outline my position.

When all reasonable options are exhausted, we have to start thinking of this as something a little more supernatural- how would you go about investigating a myth or religion like this from an anthropological perspective?I was banking on my mother's scientific mind to keep her grounded, and indeed, to ground myself in turn. After a moment, the speech bubble reappeared in our text conversation.

Well, we don't have any known living descendents to ask, so oral history won't help. Bethany and the team will be sending up scans from the pyramid soon, so we can translate those.A pause in her texts, then she returned.I can ask around, perhaps other groups have found similar unique worship sites.I lay back, holding my phone above my head to keep it in focus.

I guess I can see if there are any psychics around?I included another laughing emoji, but was surprised by her response instead.

I think that's a good idea, indigenous experience would be preferred.She expounded. I grinned to myself, despite having been the one to suggest such an adventure, trying to imagine the relentlessly data-driven Dr. Waters agreeing to something so ridiculous. This was the mother of my youth, the only version of her who would agree to visit a psychic together.

All things considered, at least we get to branch out, try new things?It was only half a joke. Bubble, then nothing, then another bubble before her response.

Whatever it takes, we'll figure it out, right?I felt a warmth in my heart for the woman who had raised me, and again fought the urge to run to her bed.

Whatever it takes, we have plenty of time. I love you mom.I paused. I hadn't meant to type that I love her, it felt a little too close for comfort considering our recent actions.

I love you too, Steven.She messaged back without a second of the hesitation present in her other messages. I felt the warmth spread through me, lulling me towards the poor night's sleep which had thus far eluded me.

I should've said something- both of us should've said something in that instant, but we simply couldn't. We needed each other to get through the mysterious events impacting our lives. We'd have to return to the university the next day, she as a professor, me as a student, but at least the analytical parts of our brains had something to cling to, something to work towards. You know what they say: Having a plan is almost as good as having a solution (at least when you're an academic).

- - -

- - -

Returning to our "normal lives" proved to be a mixed bag. It was easier to avoid each other with having to teach and attend classes, and the occurrences of mystically-induced horniness were lessened. If anything, however, we had to stay even more vigilant, so as not to be lulled into a false sense of security, and accidentally stray back towards the comfort of one anothers' bodies.

Academically, we certainly received no end of grief over the next few weeks for skipping out on the latter half of the trip, but nobody asked too many questions as the planeloads of artifacts and data retrieved by the archeological study began to arrive, much to the excitement of those who'd stayed behind. All in all, it actually seemed positive for the university to see my mother sorting through the chunks of wood and stone, the thousands of pictures of varying carvings and detailed geological analysis.

I joined her in the lab as frequently as I could, my social life decimated, but I was intent on finding a cause for our situation. We combed the etchings carefully, the graduate and undergraduate assistants fortunately preventing us from being caught alone together too often. Less fortunately, I'd sometimes find my mother bent over in front of me, and instinctively reached out to grasp her hips. I batted away the odd glances of my compatriots by pretending to wipe off dust or hair from her garments, although how much success that strategy found was indeterminate.

The carvings themselves were frustratingly obtuse. Those from the capstone of the temple, what I had thought was an altar, were evidently sexual in nature.

Not a big surprise there, I gotta be honest.

They suggested an intensely matriarchal, female deity-worshipping society revolving around a queen or religious figure commanding sex from their more diminutive males. However, those from the sides of the temple, and surrounding structures, had been fully exposed to the weather for hundreds of years. What, in theory, would've given us a more complete snapshot of the society which had created the necklaces and trapped us in a cycle of lust, had been worn mostly flat to all but the most sensitive of instruments.

- - -

- - -

I found myself magnifying my way through charcoal etchings with Dr. Waters, seeking a secret which had thus far eluded us. A bright lamp cast shadows and heat from our intense focus, outwards to the rest of the lab. I paused, stretching, before looking over at her. I was pretty sure we were alone, but in that instant, I couldn't be bothered to look. Her hair was flowing, loose and unkempt down over her neck, long and shapely. She wore a tasteful, professional light cardigan that wouldn't have normally attracted my eyes, but on her it was sexier than the skimpiest bathing suit. In an instant, my lack of focus had spiraled a sharp nail of attraction into my brain, as though she had enchanted my eyes and soul with her very presence.

"Mom-" I couldn't force myself to form words properly. I usually don't have a problem with my vocabulary, but this one time, I was utterly bereft of speech.

I remember, as a child, back when my parents were still together, I'd occasionally catch them together. Dancing, or holding hands, or perhaps simply sitting in one anothers' company, in total contentment. They were both young then, intelligent, sharp-witted and in love. It gave me a feeling of togetherness, a oneness with the universe the likes of which I haven't experienced since.

Until I saw it again with my mother, bent over a magnifying glass. She wasn't Dr. Waters, a cold and distant figure forced together with me through the supernatural, that was a mask she wore for others, a suit of armor to protect her fragile emotions. She wasn't even a sex object, as I'd seen when the lust had gripped me, shooting adrenaline through my veins and hardening my cock.

She was just Abigail, my mother, a careful, gentle woman who just wanted to be able to learn, discover, and above all else, understand. She was hunched over, totally focused in a position which would likely cause her back pain in the near future, but I could finally understand: She would never want to be anywhere else.

I sidled over behind her, encircling her slowly with my arms, trying to hold her, to contact her, but not disrupt her tender manipulation of the charcoal rubbings. I needed to be close to her in that moment. To take some of the hurt that my father had left in his wake? Perhaps. To keep her in that flow state, the state of contentment which had permeated every fiber of her being? Definitely.

I felt the tension flow out of her, and I kissed her neck, gently, lovingly. It wasn't the kiss a son gives her mother, but the kiss of a lover, repeated again and again up her jawline to her ear. Then her face turned, and we were kissing on the lips again, our tongues darting together, almost unconsciously. We were familiar, eager. A minute, then five, then ten before we broke, my brain fogged with affection and desire.

"Steven." Her voice was husky. "Do we need to..?" Her eyes flicked downward, questioning, but excited. I shook my head, placing a finger against her lips.

"It's not about that." I forestalled her question, my hand finding her chin, refocusing her back to the charcoal etchings on the desk before her. "It's about you, it's about me, it's about-" My lips filled with the pale skin of her neck once more, and I was rewarded with a shiver throughout her whole body as I deposited hickey after hickey upon her flesh.

"-Love." She finished my sentence for me, melting into me, an instant of complete relaxation.

I wanted to stay there, locked in that embrace forever. I wanted her to feel my affection, not just as my mother. In the space of that heartbeat, my desire was for her to become my partner, and indeed, my lover.

We couldn't, of course- my oral exploration of Abigail's neck was cut short by a passing janitor. I came away from the exhibition feeling- well, I can't really say how I felt in truth.

It's one thing to be possessed by supernatural understandings of a world beyond your own, and seek your mother out as a willing sexual partner. It's quite another thing to be enthusiastically assaulting her neck with your oral fixation. I figured we could chalk it up to a late night in the lab together.

- - -

- - -

It was a quiet ride home, and I confess, I wasn't particularly successful in keeping my eyes to myself.

"We just need to focus." She muttered, keeping her eyes on the road. I chewed on my lip.

"Sorry, it was the necklace, it got me all hot and bothered." I lied. She shot a raised eyebrow in my direction.

"Really?" Her tone was unconvincing. I eyed her neck, covered in small bruises and hickeys from my greedy mouth, and felt a shiver through my body.

"No." I couldn't bring myself to genuinely lie to her. I simply couldn't, not after seeing her like that. "But I'd be lying twice if I said I was sorry." I saw her hands grasp the steering wheel tightly.

"We just need to keep it together, we can beat this." Her voice shook slightly, and I felt myself hardening at the implication, the very idea she might notwantto beat it was erotic in and of itself.

I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but when we got home that night, I left my door open. It was a statement, an offer, perhaps an invitation.

It also went unanswered. I lay alone by myself, perhaps due to my earlier transgressions, or perhaps a lack of magically-induced wind. It left me feeling empty inside, alone, waiting like a bride abandoned at the altar. I resolved to redouble my efforts, and to fulfill my mother's desire to get rid of our necklaces, and the bonds which tied us together.

As I slid into sleep, I mused to myself, it wasn't like we were in a time crunch, per say, but we still needed to figure this out, sooner rather than later...

- - -

- - -

The hubris, the sheer hubris of my thoughts.

I was awoken by a call to my phone, a rasped request through the receiver, and a half-conscious tear down the hallway in the early hours of the morning.

"Honey-" Abigail was slumped beside the toilet, draped in a nightgown. Sweat was beaded on her forehead, and from the stench, I could tell she'd been throwing up. "I think we might have a bigger problem than the collars." Her hand was cupping the skin of her stomach, low over her abdomen. I gaped, open-mouthed in shock.

"Is it- are you-?" I sputtered, the bathroom spinning around me. I leaned against the sink as she nodded, a flow of emotions sliding across her visage, doubtless mimicked on my own.

"I'm pregnant- it must've happened the very first time." Her face was pale, drawn and tight, her eyes conflicted.

"Did you take a test-?" I began, but she pursed her lips at me.

"A mother knows." She was frank, curt. It felt like I'd been punched in the gut.

"What do we do?" I tried to keep my voice from shaking, to stop myself from voicing the terror of fatherhood brewing in my stomach. I couldn't be a father to my own sibling!

"Weneed to move up our timeline." She levered herself to her feet, using the toilet to support herself. "AndIneed a glass of water." I couldn't see any sign of swelling on her abdomen, no notion of the life which had planted itself in her womb.

"Can we talk about options?" I asked, hesitantly. My mother placed her hand on my shoulder, meeting my eyes.

"We still have time, we just havelessnow." Her fingers traced my neck, up to cradle my face, soft and warm. "We're not going to doanythinguntil we get some more answers." She manipulated the tap, pushing her hair away to drink from the faucet for a moment, swishing the detritus from her vomitous encounter away before straightening back up, droplets clinging to her chin as she fixed me with a terse expression. "I believe you have some psychics to call."

I beat a hasty retreat from her bathroom, suddenly painfully aware of just how little time we actually had left.