Paper Walls

I should have been taller. Dad was huge. He would fill a doorway. His hair used to brush the doorframe if he was wearing shoes. Mom is 6'2" in her socks. It is incredibly embarrassing to be 21 years old and be an inch shorter than your mother. I am, by most standards, tall, but not tall enough, if you get my meaning.

I sat on my bed, waiting for the alarm to go off before I got up. I tightened my shoelaces, straightened my belt buckle, and checked my watch against the alarm clock. Finally, the alarm went off. I slapped the button to kill it and walked quietly out of my room. It was still early and I didn't want to wake mom if I didn't have to. She was still sleeping as I made my way through our tiny apartment.

I work for a film-developing lab. I drive around to any store, shop, corner mart, retail outlet, drug store, or anywhere you can drop film and I pick it up. Some other poor bastard drives around and drops it off. It pays better than one would think, and it lets me stay out and about as part of my job. That's all nice, and that's what I tell folks if they ask what it is that I do for a living. The truth is that I am not qualified to do anything else. I am barely qualified to do that much.

At the end of the day, I would rather be doing that than some crap job that involves paper hats and nametags with pictures of french-fries on them. However, it is harder than I though it would be. Those containers get heavy. The bigger stores usually fill two containers of film on any given day. Mondays are the worst. Four containers is pretty normal for the weekend load of pictures. I wish I was one of the lucky few who delivers the pictures. They drive a company truck, and they get a spiffy red hand-truck to carry the boxes of pictures. Me? I lug them out across parking lots, through crowded stores, and past the disapproving looks of old women who think I am a janitor. But, it pays.

I spent another long day driving around the county, came home and wished I was someone else. Dad left a long time ago, and it has been mom and me ever since. I don't mind. We have it down to a kind of team thing. We had to do without for a long time, and we got to the point where things just seemed to work again.

I let the self-pity sink in for a while and then I got up to fix dinner. During the week, I did dinner and she did the light house work. On the weekends, we switched. I drifted around in thought as I stood over a popping pan of ground beef. I barely heard her when she walked in.

"Hey, you. How was your day?" She dropped her purse and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

"Pretty good," I said. She rolled her eyes and grinned.

"That sounds like the same as yesterday."

"Film pick-up is an exciting life. Few are cut out for the riggers of the job."

She laughed and went into her room to change. By the time she came out, I had dinner on the table. We ate without too much to say. Both of us were so tired by that point, dinner conversation was usually nothing more than short sentences, and grunts of agreement. I cleared the table and we went into the small living room.

This just isn't what I wanted, I thought. At 21, I wanted to be out doing something. Anything. Even if it was sitting around with friends wasting time, that was something. Instead, I was already past that and firmly entrenched in the real world.

I sat with mom and watched some TV for a while. I was suddenly aware of how badly I needed to jack- off. My body was screaming for it. It had been a long time since I did. The walls in our building were as thin as could be. It was impossible to do anything without someone on the other side, or even several rooms away, hearing what was going on. We usually turned on the exhaust fan in the bathroom just for a sense of privacy. We had learned to adjust.

Unfortunately, this meant that if I were masturbating, she would hear me. Or she would just know if I went in, shut my door, and then went to the bathroom to clean up. I couldn't handle that, so I just didn't. I didn't even have the relief of wet dreams. That would have been something, at least.

Having no real money, and no time besides, I had nothing in the way of female companionship. I was working my film job, plus two part-time jobs just to make sure we made it through the bills. Mom's job took care of food, clothes and whatever else came up.

I didn't have a life to speak of. I had television and I had mom.

I had, to my shame and to my apparent lack of any real moral fiber, begun to use mom for sexual fantasies when I was in need. She was all I had. She was still perfectly attractive. She was fit, tall, busty, and blonde. All the sweet comfort of mature ease, and she was a sexual-thought magnet. I tried not to think of her like that. I tried to think of anything else. She's part of the reason I stopped masturbating.

When I was a kid I could hear her using a vibrator to masturbate at night. I found it one day when I was looking for a pen. It was in her nightstand. I didn't know what it was at first, but when I saw that it was shaped like a dick and the switch on the bottom made the same noise I'd heard coming from mom's room nearly every night, I figured it out. It only took me ten minutes. I put it back and never mentioned it.

She stopped using it when I was 16. At least, she stopped using the vibrator part. Either that or it just up and quit.

I tried not to think about those things. I just made everything worse. I looked over to mom and sighted. She WAS really pretty. Why dad left like he did, I'll never know. She had very feminine features but they were strong and striking. Even under bargain makeup and an exhausting workday, she was pretty. I hated to leave.

"Goodnight. I'm gonna read a bit then call it a night."

"You have to work early?" Her voice was like honey.

"About 6."

"Which job is this?" She bit at her lower lip as she thought.

Must leave.

"The water delivery."

"Oh, right. You work so hard, Paul." Her eyes killed me.

"Just what has to be done. I'm not industrious by any means."

"Right," she laughed. "Good night, Paul." Her breasts shook as she laughed.

"Night." I walked to my room and tried not to shut the door too hard. I was keyed up. I needed some relief. We were just too open in an apartment. Neither one of us could do much without the other hearing.

My dick was like a crowbar in my shorts. I kept seeing her in my head. I always pictured her in what she called her "Sunday best". This was her weekend outfit, usually consisting of a horribly worn pair of cut-off sweats, and a loose t-shirt. The standard pose for such maddeningly revealing clothing was a kind of sprawling/lounging action that put her limbs in all sorts of interesting positions.

Her body had a sculpted, creamy golden craft to it. Her hair was a mild yellow and hung around her head and shoulders in soft, simple drifts. She was like the metropolitan cousin to the beach dwelling wild child.

For me, she was the pink elephant. Try as you might, you can't stop thinking about her. I wanted to picture the hot teenager who worked at the Value-Stop where I picked-up film. She was a lanky, athletic looking brunette with delicate hands, who made eyes at me on occasion. I tried to picture her. I tried to picture a waitress from the local Denny's. She was a tiny, compact redhead with a tattoo of her baby's name that she gave up for adoption when she was 15. I tried to see her, in her flimsy white blouse and her tight pants that showed the perfect outline of her panties. I tried. The Mexican girl down the street who sounded 10 and looked 30. The woman from television who did ads for skin crème. There was a list a mile long of women I should have been picturing in my mind. The only one I could see was the one name on my list of "shouldn't".

I manage. I keep my thoughts back. I push the pink elephant in a box and tell it to go to sleep for a while.

I knew that if I were dating, that I wouldn't picture what my mother looks like as she stands in the shower. Nevertheless, in a way, I felt guilty about even the idea of it. She didn't date as I as growing up, so that I wouldn't see a parade of men come in and out of our lives.

Now, she had no one but me. I couldn't leave her alone at night, too tired to start dating right then. We were a team.

I knew her company was training her to take a better paying management position. With the better money, she wouldn't have to kill herself for so little. When she could take the time to go out and start her life again, I'd do the same. She had gone without for so long in deference to my well-being, I've always figured the least I could do was take a little time doing the same for her.

One night, at the end of the week, I was feeling unusually...cranked. I felt ready to burst. Everything made me think of running off to my room to masturbate. I was walking around with a loaded weapon and I was filing down the hammer.

Mom and I were sitting in the living room watching TV. At least, I was watching. She was stretched out on the couch reading a book. Everything I turned to was crap. I couldn't find one thing to take my mind off my hard-on. I went to the financial channel. Some genius at the network had decided to hire a young woman with deadly blue eyes. The news channels all had pretty women hosting talk shows. Commercials were filled with hot soccer moms, confident businesswomen in skirts and tight hair buns, radiant young girls selling body cleanser while wearing small towels, bikini girls selling me beer, and on and on. Music videos had hard bodied dancers slutting around on screen, sitcoms, dramas, documentaries about natives in the jungle, travel shows about the best beeches for spring break - television was trying to kill me.

Mom just read her book and didn't seem to notice that I was about to explode. I left it on the most innocuous talk show I could find. That usually kept me entertained. That night, it just made me worse.

"Why don't you just shut it off?"

"What?" I had drifted off into a haze of frustration and had nearly forgotten the object of my true frustration.

"I said, why don't you turn it off. You've been zipping through the channels for half an hour. Why don't you read, or we can just talk. We don't have many chances to just talk. If I'm not exhausted, you are." She shut her book and shifted to turn towards me. Her long, gorgeous legs twisted to a more comfortable position.

"Okay, let's talk." I shut off the TV and turned on the stereo. As usual, it was the classical station. We sat and talked about her job. She couldn't wait until she was ready to take that managerial position. We talked about her co-workers. We talked about things that just plain got to her.

When she asked me about how my various jobs were going, I gave short easy answers. I didn't think about work that often. I was a bit distracted as well. Her skirt had ridden up quite a ways and I could see a mile of smooth thigh. Each time she moved it made my underwear tighten a bit. When she laughed, her face became brilliant. She was radiant when she smiled. She had her hair pulled back in a loose tussle.

As I pulled my mind back to what I was telling her, I realized that there really wasn't anything to talk about on my side. She looked at me oddly when I told her that there isn't anything more to tell.

"Tell me about your friends. I haven't heard about them in so long."

"I don't really see them anymore."

"Why not? You were always out with them." She sounded almost confused. I think it was just hitting her that I don't have anything in the way of a life.

"Well, I guess they went away after school and we lost touch. People grow apart. That's why they have to have reunions every ten years."

"You mean, they all went off to college," she said. Her face had a mix of shame and sorrow. "They all went off to college and you're stuck here with me."

"Whoa! I never said anything like that. I love you mom. I've never complained once about our life."

"No sweetheart, and you wouldn't. I'm sure that whenever you do hate this, you come up with a perfectly good reason to stick around." She looked about ready to cry. "I'm so sorry things have turned out the way they have."

"Mom, I want you to believe me when I say that I don't resent a single thing about staying with you." It was a lie. I wanted to be out on my own, but I'd told that lie to myself so often that I sounded perfectly believable telling her.

"That's sweet of you. I'm sorry I couldn't afford to send you to college. You're too bright to muck around here."

"So, when you get that job, and when things are comfortable enough, I'll take some tech classes at the community college. I'll have a useful education instead of some ridiculous Art History degree that won't pay me anything. It's fine, mom. Really."

"But what about girls? I haven't seen you on a date in over a year. You do like girls, don't you?" She looked worried for a minute.

"Of course. I know plenty of girls." This was true. I just couldn't do anything about it. "There's time for everything. But there are things that have to be done, first."

"I'm sorry that you can't have fun like you should, but I am proud of how you've turned out." She smiled again. Her face went from sad to breathtaking in a snap.

"I do wish you'd take some time and have some fun now and then. Call one of those girls you know and have a night out. God knows you deserve it. I've been out more than you, Paul. Who do you think you'd like to go out with?" She leaned forward, her breasts pressing threateningly at the fabric of her blouse. I paled, then blushed, and then paled again.

"I just don't feel like it, mom. I can barely care enough to feed myself at night. Don't worry. Things will work out." I thought that did it. She sat back, and then sat forward again. She put her hand on my knee. A serious, concerned look crept over her stunning face.

"Paul, you know about girls, right? I mean, we never had 'the talk'. Your father should have been here for that. I should have done it, but I always thought you knew that- "

"Yeah, mom. I know. I know all about that."

"Well," she laughed in relief. "I figured you did. You're 21 and all. It's just - "

"Mom. I know. It's fine. I'm just tired at the end of the day. That's all. Don't worry." Her hand was still on my knee, and at the mention of "the talk", everything I knew about sex came flooding into my mind. I looked at her with her skirt now cinched up to her red panty covered crotch and her big round breasts pushing at -

"It's late," I told her quickly. My brain was on fire. My body was ready to do something weird. I had to get out of there. "I don't know about you," I said, "but I'm wiped out. I think I just want to wash up and go to sleep."

"I can understand that, at least." She smiled up at me as I stood up. My long T-shirt hid my creeping hard-on. "Not a very exciting Friday night."

"Right now, it suits me just fine." I started to walk away, trying all the while not to run in an uncomfortable boner-waddle. Mom reached out and squeezed my arm affectionately.

"Good night, Paul."

"Night." I actually managed to make it to the bathroom without running.

What was I going to do? I felt ready to explode. I ran the water hard. My hands filled with the icy liquid, splashing my face, trying to take some of the need away. I looked at the narrow shower stall. I couldn't get in. SHE was right out there. I'd get in the shower, I'd start fine and then I'd start to jack-off. I knew I would. I'd be in there, I'd be naked, and my dick would be just begging to have a little attention. I'd start jacking off. Mom would wonder what was taking me so long. After our talk, mom would be unnecessarily concerned about me.

I would surely be halfway to relief when she would knock on the door and ask if everything was all right. I would try to ease her concern with a few non-committal answers about just relaxing. She'd ask more questions. My frustrations would eventually creep into my voice, she'd figure out what I was doing and I'd have to kill myself from the embarrassment.

I stood there in front of the sink and let this all play out in my head. Despite my need, I wasn't in the mood to even try it at that point. I wiped my face, shut off the water, took a piss, cleaned my hands, and ran to my room at the end of the hall like a frightened child.

I was in bed, lights off, trying to sleep. I stared at the green numbers on my alarm clock until my eyes hurt. Sleep wouldn't come. I kept thinking about her. I couldn't stop. She was the unfortunate target of all my lustful needs. From her, I started thinking about sex in general. It had been so damned long since I'd had any. Women don't understand the need we have for them. They think it just animal lust. But it's so much worse than that. We don't need the emotional connection they need, but for us, the sense of touch - the feel of a woman's skin on ours, or the taste of their lips on ours - it keeps us going. We inhale the very nature of women.

I remember the first boner I ever had that was directly sexually related. It had noting to do with a picture or a story. It was when a girl I liked looked me right in the eyes and smiled. She smiled just for me. Boom. Instant hard-on.

That was what it was like all night. Random memories and fantasies refused to let my cock go down. I was lying on my side, trying not to grab hold and jerk myself off. I could hear mom turning pages in her book, so I knew she would definitely hear me. I couldn't bear the thought.

I heard her get out of her couch and turn off the lights. The walls were teasing me. They were letting me hear this.

Normally I would have a radio playing softly to blend the background noise out of my head. It was a trick everyone in the building knew. Unfortunately, my radio wasn't working. The dial just spun around and all I could hear was a cranky humming noise if I tried to use it.

Therefore, I was left to be taunted by the walls. I saw the lights go out through the fraction of an inch of a gap between the door and the doorway. I heard her pad softly down the hall and into her room. Her room was right next to mine, so the taunting continued with, if anything, greater clarity than before.

If only, I thought to myself, the walls were all like the walls between apartments. At least there, the sounds were muffled. But they weren't. They were thin. Paper thin.

I heard mom flip the top to her hamper. I had become quite familiar with this routine.

She stepped hard as she pulled first one leg and then the other out of her skirt. My ears strain to hear the faint rustle of a blouse and then more movement as she strips completely.

She opens her door and stops. For the longest time I could not fathom why she waited so long to walk down the hall. And when she did finally go down the hall, she kept the lights off. It was the only time she did that. She turned lights on to do anything. But not that. I couldn't figure it out.

Then I did. She was undressing first and walking naked to the bathroom for her shower. She was waiting to see if I was yet asleep. She didn't like to carry her clothes back after, nor did she care to drop them on the floor. We tried a small hamper once, but it was just too small a room for that.

Therefore, mom's solution was to walk naked down the hall to the bathroom. Maybe she got a thrill out of it. Maybe I was making more of it than I needed to. Maybe I had peeked through the tiny gap between the door and the frame once night. And maybe I had seen the shadowed silhouette of mom walking naked into the bathroom. I hadn't seen more than the outline of her body, but the knowledge that she was walking ten feet down a hallway that we shared, and that she did this every night - well that was more than I could take.