The Gift Box

Inspired by true events.

*

My phone vibrated beside the mounting pile of invoices on the desk before me and caused me to start. I was snowed under at work and staying late trying to catch up before the short Christmas break. Thinking the message was from my wife I was pleased for the distraction and retrieved my cell.

The text read. "Hi Honey. There's something wrong with my washing machine. Would you be a dear and look at it for me? Mom." I smiled at her signing ownership of the text message and was about to reply when a follow up came through. "When you get a chance that is! Mom."

I noted the hour and figuring my wife Meagan would already be holding off dinner to allow for my overtime, a quick stop by my mother's house on the way home wouldn't delay me long and shot off a reply that I'd be there within the half hour.

It would kill two birds with the one stone. On my lunch break I'd spent the time doing my long delayed gift buying. Meagan had taken care of the majority of the presents for the extended family which meant I really only had to deal with Mom and my wife. Meg's gifts had taken the longest to decide upon. A classy silver banded watch had caught my eye and whilst browsing the women's department, Christmas themed lingerie seemed irresistible to my comic and romantic senses. A light hearted gift to compliment the expensive watch and a nod to the season.

Mom's had been simple. Meagan had suggested a new juicer as she'd taken note of my mother's desire to obtain one every time she visited our house. It was located and paid for in a matter of minutes and on the way back to the car, just as the lingerie had caught my eye for my wife, so did another item of clothing that screamed 'Mom' to me.

The store was a woollen clothing shop. Full of scarves and hand knitted beanies, it was the sweater on display in the front window that I just had to buy. When I was a child, Mom and Dad would annually find and don the most gaudy of Christmas sweaters to wear on the holiday. It was a tradition that faded away as I aged and lost the spirit but with this being the first Christmas without my father, I thought it would be a nice reminder for her of the happy days of our past.

The sweater itself was a frozen lake theme with snowmen on skates. Red, white and green, it was as colorful as it was busy and was perfect for the supplemental (novelty) gift. When the little old lady behind the counter offered to wrap it, I should have taken more notice. The size and color of the box she placed it in was almost identical to that which contained my wife's lingerie. A coincidence that would change my life forever.

* * * * *

Upon arriving at Mom's I opened the trunk of my car and discovered the contents had shifted during the drive. The bag from the lingerie store had toppled, the box which I only then noted the similarity however, still partially inside. I scooped up the other box and leaving the juicer in the car, headed towards the rear of my childhood home.

"Mom?" I called as I entered the kitchen, the smell of her dinner still permeating the room and causing me to remember my own hunger.

"In here honey!" Came the reply from the living room and as I approached she met me half way.

Her eyes went to the present in my hands and after kissing me on the cheek she mentioned that Christmas wasn't for two days.

"I know but this is an extra something I want you to wear on the day," I enthused.

"I'm still coming to yours for lunch? Won't we do presents then?" She pondered.

"Of course. After lunch. But this, I want to see you wearing when I come pick you up!" I handed her the box, not thinking at the time the relative lightness of the package.

"Can I open it now?" She asked, a quizzical look appearing on her face.

"No. Wait for the day. I want it to be a surprise." I rubbed her arm affectionately as I looked away towards the laundry. "So. What's the deal with this washing machine?"

My handy man credentials were limited to turning it off and on again and jiggling pipes and wires. After coming up short as to what had malfunctioned I suggested she call a repair man and offered to take any clothes she needed washing home to do in our machine.

"Oh no, that's too much to ask," she half heartedly managed. "I can just hand wash them for now."

We both looked at the sizeable basket of laundry and I smiled, taking possession of the dirty clothes. "Mom. It's no big deal. Meg will do them in the morning, you can drop by tomorrow afternoon to pick them up."

"Well if you're sure," she conceded and added a couple of towels to the collection.

* * * * *

"Ah, I don't think so!"

Meagan's reaction to me presenting my mother's dirty laundry to her wasn't unexpected I supposed.

"She's your mother and I'm going into work early in the morning. You do it!" Her words weren't used with any malice and she smiled as she watched me over her wine glass. I turned on my heel and headed towards the laundry with Meagan yelling advice out behind me. "Separate the colors! Oh and the delicates."

What did she think I was I? A rookie, I wondered as I placed the laundry basket down on the bench top. So all I had to do was put on a couple of loads and throw some stuff in the dryer before bed. The items I'd need to hang dry would be ready for when Mom arrived to pick them up the next day. Simple. Once I lifted off the towels she had added at the last moment I was immediately confronted with my mother's panties. And they weren't what I'd been expecting.

What had I been expecting? Well nothing really. I hadn't put any thought into it at all up until then. It wasn't something a son did think about was it? His mom's panties. The pink transparency struck me as out of place, out of character. I lifted the delicate material up and saw a matching bra beneath. Cup-less, my initial thought was you would see her nipples through the fibres and then unprompted my mind imagined what would be visible through the panties.

"Fuck," I audibly voiced and waited a moment for any sign Meagan had heard my exclamation. None forthcoming I dropped her underwear on the bench and turned back to the basket. Trying to put the thought of my mother's vagina out of my mind I threw jeans, a couple of t-shirts and another pair of pants into the machine. The diversion lasted only that long, the next pair being white satin with lace edging. I'd never considered myself a fetishest before then, but touching another woman's (apart from my wife's) panties gave me an unexpected thrill.

I caressed the satin between my fingers admiring the feel, before examining them further by opening them up and investigating the crotch. Jesus Declan, I scolded myself. They're your mom's! But even that acknowledgement didn't lessen my enthusiasm as I discovered the lightly yellowed, stained gusset. I repeated the assertion. They're Mom's panties for fuck's sake! But it did no good. As if working on auto pilot, my hands raised the underwear to my face and I inhaled the scent they held.

I could tell myself it was just a pair of women's panties I was getting off on. That my erection was from imagining some random woman or even my wife wearing them, but who was I kidding? The image that formed in my head and the reason I was so turned on was that it was my mother who had worn them. It was the taboo. The forbidden nature of what I was doing that was so thrilling, that had my cock straining against my pants. If I hadn't heard Meagan go through the motions of serving dinner down the hall I felt I would've used them to wrap around my hardness and masturbate. Cum into them, all the while thinking incestuous thoughts about my mother. What I would do to her and have her do to me. All in the fantasy world of course! It was just a fantasy. Nothing more. So I kept telling myself.

* * * * *

Meagan laughed as I'd never seen her do! I held the shrunken t-shirt up to her and attempted to explain what I thought had happened. "I must have set the timer wrong or something." I pulled out of the dryer the white satin panties I'd held the night before. Now half the size, almost perfectly shrunk and no longer causing the same reaction in me.

"Oh you think?" Meagan helpfully exclaimed. "Thank you for this. It'll make a great story to tell my family over Christmas lunch tomorrow." Shaking her head she managed to take time out of her revelry to kiss me on the lips and say goodbye before heading off to her workplace. I was left to separate the remainder of my mom's clothing I hadn't destroyed and fold into a pile for her to retrieve later in the day. I just hoped she'd see the funny side as much as Meagan had.

* * * * *

Mom was standing in the front yard talking with my wife as I pulled into the driveway.

"Oh here he is!" Meagan laughed, continuing on from the morning. Mom held the basket of now dried and folded washing on her hip.

"Yeah sorry Mom, I..."

"Oh don't worry about it Honey," she looked at Meagan smiling. "Men! What are they good for?"

Meagan reached into the basket and lifted out the tiny pair of shrunken, ruined panties before flicking them at me like a sling shot. "You'll have to wash your mom's panties by hand now Declan, that's if she'll trust you with them again!" She laughed as I caught them on my chest, the satin feeling the same and the memory of my initial contact with them returning.

Meagan was still in her work clothes but Mom looked like she'd just been exercising. As I ashamedly placed her panties back in the basket I allowed my eyes to caress her body. She would turn fifty six early in the new year and she was still in good shape. Always saying she needed to go on a diet and continuously working out, Meagan and I believed she must have body dysmorphia, as she was as lithe as she'd ever been. Mom wore a light blue sweatshirt with a hood. Tight, it had a zipper up the front which was pulled down to reveal her cleavage. Carefully, making sure I wasn't observed, my eyes lowered to her legs as she spoke to Meagan about the plans for tomorrow.

I shouldn't have been looking. I didn't even know why I was looking, but yet sure enough I found my gaze drawn to her crotch. The grey 3/4 leggings she wore were tight around her hips and thighs, tighter still around her vagina. I didn't know how long I stared at it, not wanting to look away from the folds of her pussy so easily visible through the material. I took in every detail of her mound, the twin lumps of my mother's camel-toe, so enticing, so beautiful.

"So what time will you pick me up?" I heard my mother ask and I realized she was talking to me. I looked up immediately and felt my face redden.

"I'm sorry, what?" I asked wondering if they both knew I'd been perving on my mother's pussy?

"Tomorrow morning. You're still coming to pick me up aren't you?" Mom asked.

"Oh yeah sure, um, ten work for you?" I offered, my face losing its hue.

"I'll be ready." She kissed Meagan on the cheek and approached me to do the same. I purposefully inhaled her perfume and the scent of her hair as she did and I again questioned my reason for doing so. As she walked out to her car on the curb I looked at her ass but didn't linger in case Meagan noticed. I couldn't see a panty line across her cheeks. Was my mother wearing a thong I wondered? And the thought caused a stir in my loins.

* * * * *

Meagan was up early preparing the meal and I was doing everything I could to both help and stay out of her way. Hosting Christmas each year was Meagan's pet love and hate. With Dad gone, my side of the family consisted of only Mom and me. On the contrary, with two sisters and a brother, all with children and both parents still alive, Meagan had an army to feed. She always organized the day perfectly and I just did what I was told when I was told to do it. At 9:50 am. I gave Mom a call and told her I was on my way.

"I'll be there in ten minutes," I informed her when she answered.

"Oh Honey, okay." I noticed she sounded different. "Um..."

"What?" I asked.

"It's just, the present!" She managed.

"Oh cool you opened it! Are you wearing it? I'm dying to see what you look like!"

"You want me to put it on? Now?"

"Well yeah. I thought of you as soon as I saw it!" I was more than a little confused at her reaction. I had thought she would be happier. That the sweater would remind her of merry Christmases in the past. I then realized what an idiot I was. Of course it was reminding her. Reminding her my father was no longer with us. "Hey Mom. You don't have to wear it if you don't want to. I just wanted to see you in it, that's all."

I heard her fight a lump in her throat. "Oh Baby of course I'll wear it for you. I just can't believe it, that's all. After all this time. I'd love you to see me in it. What mother wouldn't?"

Her last comment confused me a little but I was happy she seemed to have cheered up.

"I'll put it on right now. I'll be ready for you Declan. See you soon."

I pinched Meagan on the ass as I passed through the kitchen and she rewarded me with a lick of cranberry sauce off her finger. "I'm going to get Mom. Be back soon."

"What did she think of the Christmas sweater?" Meagan asked as I took my car keys from the top of the fridge.

"Um, I'm not sure. She sounded weird. I think it might remind her too much of Dad."

"Mm, I thought that would happen!" Meagan responded.

"Well why didn't you say anything? I just thought it'd be funny!"

She didn't answer my question, instead posing her own. "Will she stay the night?"

"Maybe. Guess we'll see how much we drink!" I proposed. "Anyway, I'll be back!"

* * * * *

My childhood home was only a few suburbs away and although still early there was heavy Christmas traffic on the roads. I arrived at Mom's shortly after ten and waited a moment in the car for her to come out thinking she would've heard me pull up. I thought of honking the horn but instead reasoned she wasn't ready so headed around the back to see how she was going. "Mom?" I called out as I entered the kitchen as I'd done countless times before.

"In here Darling!" She replied from the living room, the 'darling' tag not one she'd ever used on me. This time I didn't meet her half way. I entered the family room and stopped short. For that one instant I thought I'd entered the wrong house. Everything was in the right position. The furniture and fittings were all as expected but the woman that stood before the fireplace seemed not to be my mother.

Her brown hair was off her shoulders, tightly pulled back in a bun. Her makeup was immaculately applied, red lips and dark eyeliner. One of her aforementioned shoulders was bare. The strap of the lingerie having fallen down her arm. Yes, the lingerie!

My mother stood before me wearing the same Christmas themed lingerie I had purchased for my wife. Predominately red, the Yuletide flavour was added with a fringe of white across the cups of the bustier. A red micro thong, barely covering her pubic bone and the sex beneath sat behind the garter straps attached to red thigh high stockings, clinging to her like a second skin. She'd donned black high heels to lengthen her already long legs.

There was a moment of silence between us as my eyes took in her appearance, rising back up her body and finally connecting with her own as a broad smile appeared on her face. "Well. Are you going to say something Darling?" She asked, again using 'darling' as she broke the gaze and turned for me. My eyes immediately zeroed in on her ass, rounded buttocks bare but for the garters and thong disappearing between her cheeks.

Her turn was delayed as she reached for a glass of white wine placed on the mantel and it gave me time to regain my faculties. What the hell was happening here? My mother was wearing see through lingerie, seemingly for my benefit. I looked around the room and noticed the opened gift box. The same gift box her Christmas sweater was in. The room swirled and I felt a momentary wave of nausea as I realized what had happened. I'd given her the wrong gift. The sweater was still in the trunk of my car. I thought of our conversation over the phone. Her initial reluctance to wear the clothing now understandable but then the excitement in her voice saying she'd love to wear it for me.

I didn't know what to say. I could feel my face redden as she again faced me, sipping from the glass as she slowly walked in my direction.

"I love it Honey," her free hand ran down the material from her breast, with it's nipple clearly visible, to her hip. "You have no idea how happy this has made me. Do I look pretty? You still haven't said anything?"

She stopped mere feet from me. Close enough I could have reached out and touched her. Placed my hands on her breasts, her pussy. My mother's pussy. But I couldn't. I had to explain. To confess the mistake that had been made.

"Mom, I.." I began.

"Yes Baby?"

"I didn't. I mean, I didn't give you the..." I looked down at her body and gestured to her clothing. "This!"

Her face took on a humoured look of confusion. "What do you mean? It was the present you gave me. I love it."

"Oh shit Mom, I don't know how to say it." I paused and her smile began to fade. "I bought this for Meagan. I've given you the wrong present. I had a sweater for you, it must still be in my car. I can get it. I'm so sorry, believe me."

The smile now completely gone. Replaced with a deepening red hue that rose from her neck to cover her face. Her eyes, before quickly diverting from my own, began to glisten as she in turn realized what had happened. "Oh of course I knew," she turned and made for the gift box, scooping it up with the tissue paper wrapping. "I was just playing a trick on you, that's all!" She lied as she placed her glass down too heavily on the table and it splashed her hand and the carpet. Ignoring it she refused to make eye contact with me again as she hurried past me, using the box to obscure the front of her body on the way out of the room.

"Mom." I called after her, allowing myself another look at her rear. God it did look good. She looked good. No, she looked great. "Mom, I'm sorry."

I was left alone in the living room, not knowing what I should do. So many thoughts were running through my head. I had just seen my mother near naked. She had wanted me to see her near naked. I thought of what may have happened here if I hadn't said anything. If I hadn't confessed. Was it possible she had wanted me? That she thought the gift of lingerie was me admitting my incestuous feelings towards her? And did I have those feelings? Yes, I'd thought of her sexually when I'd touched her panties. I'd admired her ass and pussy in her leggings, but did that mean I really wanted to fuck my own mother? Was giving her the wrong present merely my subconscious acting for me to encourage the fact?

I looked at her wine glass and wondered how much she had had to drink before I arrived. Her lipstick had left a mark on the rim and I picked up the glass and drank from the same spot. I needed it as I wondered what I should do. A part of me wanted to follow her down the hall. To go to her room and take her in my arms, to tell her it was all okay, to kiss her, to fuck her. To fuck my own mother, on her own bed.

I'd drunk most of the wine before I'd even realized and took the glass into the kitchen. The bottle was half empty. She'd had at least one glass prior to this but I doubted she was drunk. I felt like an asshole. How embarrassed must she be feeling? To ostensibly parade around half naked in front of her son, thinking he wanted her sexually. To only discover it was all a mistake. The ridiculous and the most cruel thing about it was, I did!

Mom surprised me when she entered the kitchen. Her demeanour had definitely changed, hurriedly placing the gift box down on the table without mention of its contents, corking the wine and returning it to the fridge. Her hair had been let down from the bun and she began the process of pulling it back into a pony tail, taking the hair tie she had been storing between her lips and securing it in place. "Well should we get going?" She asked as if nothing had happened between us moments before.