Box of Polaroids

The day my father died, was the day it started, they told me.

That was the day my mother changed.

Some said it was shock, and assured me it would fade away.

She wasn’t suffering from depression, and not quite catatonia.

When I arrived home I could see exactly what they meant.

She moved like she was in a trance, quiet and listless. She slept a lot, and talked very little.

She peered out the window for hours and listened to people speak, but what she was really seeing and hearing, no one could tell me.

She didn’t seem to be in distress, or distraught. There was no weeping or crying, just a state of unemotional unresponsiveness.

“Dee is in a state of denial, perhaps a kind of mental break with reality.” The doctor said to me,

“The event was an overload, so she detached from it. Just keep an eye on her, she may come out of it. At this point, there’s nothing I can do.”

“I live out-of-state.” I replied. “My parents and I, we weren’t close, to tell you the truth. My grandparents raised me from early on. I don’t really know my mother.”

“That’s a shame. But I recommend staying with her anyway, until you can figure out her care.”

So I moved into their house.

My parents were young when they had me – my father was twenty, and my mother was eighteen.

She was five foot nine, with a curvy build, and dark hair, a cute pert nose, freckles and hazel eyes.

My friend Jimmy would tell me she was hot, good-looking; had the best boobs of all the mothers he knew, but I never really noticed.

My mother and father just weren’t around that much. I always felt like I was a surprise, a little intrusion into their lifestyle.

My parents, traveling for long periods of time, made arrangements for me to stay with my grandparents.

It was a fact that my grandparents had basically raised me.

By High School I was going months without seeing my parents. By graduation both my grandparents had passed and I was living alone, spending time packing up their house, which they left to me.

I skipped college and moved to the city to start work at a marketing firm. I had turned my Grandparents old house into an Airbnb, and I started my life in the city.

Two years later, just after I turned twenty, I got the call about my father.

I put my life on hold and traveled to their house.

My mother was just thirty-eight.

I hired Maria, a live-in caregiver to take care of the basics that my mother could no longer handle. Things like getting up in the morning, getting dressed, bathing and nutrition. Maria handled all of it, while I stayed on to support her as best I could.

“Is she getting better, you think?” I said one day.

‘That person you knew is gone.” Maria replied. “Never to return.”

“Never?”

“I’ve rarely seen someone so lost inside their mind. Your mother won’t be coming back.”

“Why do you say that?”

“This is her new real. You see?”

I didn’t see, not yet.

Then came the Pandemic. And the lockdown.

Maria left to take care of her own family.

We were on our own, for a while at least.

All of our groceries and staples were now delivered, as going out was no longer an option.

The house had an entertainment system, a workout space, a sauna and a wine cellar. All the bells and whistles, my father made sure of that.

So I settled in.

Dad’s large insurance settlement had set my mother up very comfortably, so she wouldn’t have to worry about money ever again.

My job in the city started laying everyone off due to the Pandemic, so I quit to be with Dee.

Now I could “keep an eye on her” full time.

Now, with Maria gone, my mother was my responsibility.

She would eat if I put food in front of her, she would dress if I laid out clothes. I guided her to the living room in the morning and turned on the TV for her, but sometimes she would just look out the window.

Two months went by.

I found the box cleaning out Dad’s stuff.

It was well hidden in the master bedroom, a room I was never allowed in.

What was in the box altered my brain chemistry, that’s the only way I can explain it. After I opened it, it became an obsession.

It contained over a hundred explicit Polaroid pics of a woman I recognized as my mother engaged in a variety of sex acts.



Some with men other than my father, some with groups of men, a few with women.

My father was in none of them, I reckoned he was behind the camera.

There were photos of my mother bound with rope and being screwed by a stranger, while a muscular arm reaching into the frame, squeezing one of her large tits. Another with my mother wearing a leather mask with a large cock in her mouth. Yet another with her sitting on the side of the bed with a thin, pale girl with red hair, both nude and kissing.

The hundreds of images modified and reshaped the way I saw the person I vaguely knew as my mother.

I don’t think I realized it at the time, but looking at the pictures I saw her as a sexual being for the first time.

Seeing her like that was like being introduced to a stranger.

Five months into being isolated in the house she called me “John.”

That was my father’s name.

We were sitting in the living room. She was staring out the window, watching it rain.

“John, come sit with me.” She said.

To hear her initiate conversation was rare, and I didn’t want to interrupt the moment by correcting her.

I moved to the couch and sat next to her.

She was wearing a soft, fuzzy robe, as she did every day. She was dressing herself now, and that was a win, even though I knew that the robe was all she was wearing.

She snuggled next to me and placed her hand on my thigh.

Unbidden, my cock began to grow inside my flannel sleep pants.

I hadn’t sex for almost seven months now, maybe more, and her touch was sent a shiver through me.

Her robe had fallen open a bit and I could see her large tits.

I put my arm around her and she put her head on my shoulder.

She took my hand and placed it inside her robe, on one of her bare tits. I could feel her nipple, as my hand closed involuntarily on her breast.

I froze, not knowing how to react.

If I pulled away, would it shatter this reality for her? How would that affect her in this mental state?

Would she slide into a depression if I denied this reality? Would she hurt herself?

I also realized that I was holding one of my mothers tits in my hand. It was warm, the skin was soft, and it was firm.

Her nipple was hard under my fingers.

“Why don’t you make love to me anymore John?” She asked, pressing my hand down onto her soft tit.

An image flashed into my head, one of the Polaroid pics.

My mom smiling, shirt unbuttoned, both tits out as a burly, hairy man holds one in his big hand, lifting it up slightly for the camera.

“I’m…waiting for you to feel better.” I replied.

“I feel perfectly alright. You know you can do whatever you want to me John.”

This was apparently true.

Cleaning out my fathers things I had uncovered a trove of information on their sex life. It seemed that my Mom was very submissive, and they had a large collection of toys they had accumulated over the years. Soft ropes, leather, cuffs, dildos, vibrators, cock rings, and a Polaroid camera.

And of course, the large cigar box of pictures.

An image flashed in my mind, one of the pics from the box.

My mom is on all fours, nude on a bed, her tits hanging, I recognize my fathers torso behind her, taking her doggy-style.