In a quiet suburb on the outskirts of Saint Paul, Minnesota, there is a house. Compared to the other houses on the block, it’s nothing spectacular or outstanding. It’s a single-story ranch home; white exterior siding, faux-terracotta shingles, a few picture windows and a single-car garage. Past the Home Sweet Home welcome mat and the red front door, one sees a minimalistically furnished joint living room/dining room/kitchen. Every appliance in this room, apart from the TV, is a decade old at least. Well maintained, and well used, but not top of the line by any means.

Were one to turn right after entering the home and move past the kitchenette, one would find a narrow corridor with three doors; one door at the far end, and two on the right. The door at the far end is a bathroom, similarly unremarkable to the rest of the house. Full shower and bath combo, toilet, sink, all basic white porcelain with silver faucets and shower heads. At this stage, the bathroom is mostly unimportant. It’s the other two doors that are important.

If one were to be present in this hallway between 10:00 and 11:00 PM and listened very closely, one might hear a faint rhythmic thumping. Quiet and indistinct, occurring mostly in half-second intervals, with occasional variations in speed. Occasionally the beat stops entirely, or slows dramatically, only to pick back up again after about thirty seconds. From the sound alone it would be virtually impossible to tell what it was… but, if one were to be made aware of the fact that one of the rooms adjoining this hallway was the bedroom of a teenager, one could hazard a guess.

The teenager in question is Dylan Schroeder. He’s a newly-minted high school senior, two months into what is likely to be the last phase of his academic career. He never had any grand ambitions or hopes of wealth, making college largely unnecessary. There are plenty of decent paying jobs in the Saint Paul area that would take a high school diploma, and as long as he lives at home and chips in with the finances, that would be fine with him. He’s got an active social life, several hobbies and quasi-athletic interests (mainly skateboarding), and he’s a decent looking guy to boot. Things have been easy and uncomplicated for Dylan all his life, and he’d like to keep it that way.

At this moment, Dylan is lying in bed, with the sheets just covering his shins. The rest of his body is exposed to the air, and entirely nude. His left hand is holding a phone a few inches away from his face, showing a scene of a young, slender brunette being fucked in the ass. Earbuds extend from the phone’s audio jack, snaking across Dylan’s chest and ending in his ears. All he can hear is the manic moaning of the woman, the labored grunting of the man bouncing her up and down on his cock, and the wet slapping noise of their oiled bodies coming together with each thrust. With his right hand he matches each thrust by pulling up and down on his dick. Every few minutes he pauses and slows down, drawing out his pleasure, trying to make the moment last. When the lotion around his cock thins out, he pauses again to reapply it, and quickly returns to the rhythm. Lost in ecstasy and deafened to the outside world, Dylan fails to hear the thumping he generates each time he jerks, caused by the headboard of his bed hitting the back wall. He’s been masturbating like this for years; lying in bed, headphones in, constantly thumping, and he’s never been aware of the noise.

His mother, however, has always been aware.

Elaine Schroeder is, outwardly, a typical single mom. She works for a local auto part manufacturer as part of their HR department. She drives a 2010 Chevrolet Traverse, she drinks Franzia, and she’s seen most seasons of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Appearance wise she stands at about five foot six and could be described as “curvy” in certain areas. There are a few rolls and faint stretch marks where her abdomen meets her hips, more than made up for by an impeccably round butt and ample breasts, featuring areolas the size of saucers. Elaine’s hair is dyed platinum blonde; her natural, mousy brown hair color shows through in only two places: her roots, and her pubic hair, which frames her labia like a well trimmed halo. Elaine’s ex-husband never liked the way her hair grew in, and “encouraged” her to get frequent waxings. The divorce was years ago, and those bikini waxes ended with their marriage, but she always has kept things down there well-groomed… just in case.

At this moment, all of Elaine is visible, in the same way that all of Dylan is. Although they’re separated by drywall and wood, the two of them are sharing in a similar experience. Elaine’s right hand rests between her thighs, her palm cupping her pubic mound. Her fingers are frantically exploring the moist crevice that Dylan came from. Her ring finger moves up and down the lower reaches, while her middle finger makes rapid circles just below the clitoris. Every so often, she curls up her pinky and pointer fingers and runs them along the sides of her labia.

On occasion, the thumping behind her head slows down, and she slows with it. When the pace picks up again, her pace does as well. She puts herself in lockstep with the noise from the other bedroom, knowing full well what it signifies, and relishing it. Elaine isn’t watching anything as she pleasures herself; she doesn’t have to. The source of her pleasure, of her rapture, is all in her head. She hones in on the sound of the headboard on the other side of the wall, and imagines Dylan, above her, on top of her, thrusting into her. Each pound against the wall is an imagined shudder of ecstasy as Dylan’s phantasm rams into her. She imagines running her hands along his lean body, and looking up at his face with pride and profound joy.

This fantasy isn’t something that she’s proud of. She would never admit it to a single living soul, not for any reward or threat. Elaine recognizes it for what it is: an unhealthy obsession that can not and should not ever be fulfilled. She’s tried to get help before; she’s gone to plenty of therapists to address her “sexual frustration” following the divorce, but she could never bring herself to say the truth; that she was attracted to her own son and desperately wanted to be with him, physically, intimately, sexually. Once you say something like that… once you put that out in the world… you can’t take it back. In a sense it becomes real. Right now, it’s just a twisted, perverted, and harmless fantasy.

On these nights, when the two of them masturbate together, they’re never perfectly in sync. One always finishes before the other. This time, it’s Elaine who cums first, feeling the rush of electricity across her whole body. She considers going again, cumming for a second time as Dylan’s rhythm is still going strong. But, just as she begins to touch herself, the beat stops. She waits, listens closely… but after two minutes, there’s nothing. He’s finished for the night, and will likely be asleep soon.

Elaine grabs her crumpled nightie off of the floor and slips it over her head. She lays back and casually pulls the sheets over her. In a low whisper, so low that even someone standing in her room wouldn’t be able to hear it, she says her nightly mantra:

“G’night sweetie…”

In time she drifts off to sleep, content, for the time being, in the exercise of her sick little fantasy, even content in knowing that it will always be a fantasy.

The time now is 11:09, November 6th. Over the course of the next seven days, it will cease to be a fantasy.