Her Mother's Mirror

Manhattan was 97 degrees and deserted. The majority of the students had been wise enough to flee the campus and the August heat that had consumed it. However, some of the leftovers could be found on the fire escapes with cigarettes in hand. They looked serene and melancholy-- like they were on a slow sinking ship with no lifeboats but plenty of wine.

The real tragedy of this story is that I didn't heed their warning. Those sweat-stained cigarettes were warning flags. They told tales of plague, hurricanes, and desolation that I was too naive to read. I hadn't yet attended my first college class, anything could have happened. Things could have been so different.

The building was old and hot, with too many bricks and not enough air conditioning. These were not the freshman dorms; my parents had sprung for a single. My mother didn't want my studies to be derailed by some "Dope smoking financial aid roommate.".

The dorm was small, but clean, and it had its own bathroom complete with a shower. I dropped my backpack and looked out the window and was pleasantly surprised by the view. The Sun was falling in the west. I had always found comfort in the soft reds and yellows of sunsets, but these were different. They bent and ricocheted off the thousand glass towers, beautiful--yes, but terrible too in their engulfing chaos.

The movers would be up soon, along with my parents, and I had little interest in making small talk. I retreated into the hallway. It was then that I noticed the roof access stairwell. When I got to the door, I saw that it was propped open by a decapitated baby doll's head. I slipped past it and climbed a flight of stairs. At the top, another door was propped up by a He-Man action figure. I opened it and stepped out onto a dirty expanse of gravelly rooftop flanked on all sides by flaming windows.

Silhouetted against the inferno was the black outline of a thin figure with their back to me, holding their elbow at a right angle. The figure turned suddenly.

"Hello, stranger. What brings you to my rooftop?" she said.

"I wanted to see the sunset," I said.

"And..?"

"And what?"

"And what do you think?" She said, taking a measured draw from a pale white cigarette.

She had long blonde hair and dark eyes that looked straight at you, as a challenge or an invitation? I couldn't decide.

"It's very pretty," I said, lowering my eyes to the safety of the gravel.

"Oh, is that all? I suppose you're not one of those dreadful want-to-be poet types--that's a relief. The last thing this college needs is another one of them."

She was laughing at me now, and I didn't know why. The whole encounter had me off balance. I didn't know what she was talking about, but I had a vague inclination that in a world divided between her and them, I had already chosen a side.

"See, one of them, the artistic type," she said, "would come up with some crap about how it looked as if two great armies of kaleidoscopic titans were crashing into each other in a mad orgy of lethal color and cruel angles. But I prefer your line, after all, more than anything else, it is pretty. Do you smoke?"

"No"

"How old are you?"

"18"

"A freshman--how nice! Well, about time you start, don't you think?"

"I don't know."

"Of course, you don't know. Lucky for you, though, I'm a senior, and I know everything."

She pulled out a pack of Camel Lights and handed me one. I took it, of course; what would you have done? She pulled out a white Bic lighter with the words grunge is dead scrawled upon it in black nail polish. I leaned in, and she lit my cigarette with a quick, practiced motion. I tried to inhale equally coolly, but my virgin lungs betrayed me, and I coughed rather pathetically for what felt like a long time.

"Easy there, killer."

She was laughing at me again. I watched her breasts strain against her faded black tank top in sync with the joyful rhythm of her breath. I realized with a jolt that she wore no bra and her nipples were pierced with horizontal studs.

"Don't pull it in so fast. Watch me." She took a quick drag and held it in her open mouth for me to see. The white smoke danced playfully around her painted red lips. She let it drift idly away before snapping it back into her alluring chest with a quick inhale. She held eye contact till she exhaled in twin streams from her ring-pierced nose. I imitated her and took a smaller puff off mine, letting it sit for a moment and then inhaling it gently. It bit sharply into my lungs, but I didn't cough. I looked back at her, feeling light-headed and triumphant. She was smiling at me.

"There you go, nice, right?"

"Yes"

"My name is Taylor. I used to date someone who lived here, he transferred, thank God, but I could never get over this view."

"I'm Jackson. My parents are helping me move into a single on the 6th floor."

"Welcome to the campus, Jackson, with a single." She smiled and let her eyes wander up and down my thin frame. I was tall and skinny with some muscle definition from skateboarding, but I didn't know if she'd be impressed. When her eyes met mine, I blushed.

The Sun was now below the horizon line. The red and yellow lights had molted, revealing plucked purples and blues. Taylor took one last inhale off her camel, then flicked it casually to the ground. I watched it fall from her long, delicate finger past her flat stomach and the womanly flare of her thin yet shapely hips. The butt nestled in the gravel before suddenly being crushed under a well-worn Doc Martin boot.

"Well, I'll be seeing you around Jackson. And I'm sure we'll learn all about each other, but for now, let's revel in the mystery, okay?"

"Okay, Taylor."

Just like that, she was gone, back past the He-Man and the severed baby head, down the stairs, and into the guts of the building.

I sat there smoking till I felt nauseous and ditched the cigarette about halfway through. So this is New York. I remember thinking, "I'd rather be here than anywhere else."

Those first weeks in New York passed quickly. Every day seemed to promise adventure and self-realization. I attended my first classes and found them lacking, but fortunately, Taylor came back to smoke on my rooftop almost every day that week, and by Thursday, we were friends. Taylor showed me her world and introduced me to her friends. Under her supervision, I bought my first pair of Docs and developed a taste for Camel Lights.

Each new person Taylor brought into my life seemed to be effortlessly cool. I met Elizabeth first. She was Taylor's childhood friend. She was dark-haired with a pretty, freckled face and an impossibly thin body whose only concession to fat was a pair of large, uncanny breasts. She was in the habit of carrying around a little black book of poems, chain smoking, and leaning over in low-cut shirts just for the fun of watching people squirm.

Alex was introduced as Elizabeth's soon-to-be boyfriend. He was tall, muscular, and dark-haired, with a well-groomed goatee and a perfectly tuned 3700$ guitar that he wore as an accessory. He had sad brown eyes offset by beautiful lips that never seemed to lose the shape of a smirk for long.

Taylor referred to us as her little group. We all craved her approval in our own way, and because of that, she held us all together. Every day after classes, we would come together around her, drawn by that mysterious magnetism that is so rare in the general population but which can be found in rare individuals to the point of excess.

"There's something wrong with this cheap paper," Alex said, abandoning the half-rolled joint on the back of his guitar.

"Shut up, Alex, just admit you can't roll." Taylor said.

"You fucking do it then if it's so easy," Alex said.

And she did. She rolled a perfect joint in less than a minute.

"Ooo, let's light it!" said Elizabeth.

Taylor took the first hit, as was her right, then passed it to me. I looked up at Taylor's smiling eyes and knew in my heart that there wasn't any question of refusing her. I pulled the smoke deep and held it till the edges of my vision began to blur. In the crisp air, I couldn't tell where the smoke ended, and my breath began. I coughed and sputtered, but when I finally came up for air, I felt as if a weight had lifted off my head. The orange and scarlet leaves seemed to glow against the gray sky. Taylor smiled at me, and I smiled back.

We would go to our bench almost every day and slip away from reality. The leaves fell, and the ducks disappeared. We layered long sleeves and hoodies under our flannels. Taylor tucked her golden hair into a light green beanie. I started getting impatient with my classes. They took too long and kept me away from my friends and that feeling of peace. So when Alex told me to ditch my afternoon geology lab and meet him at the spot, I didn't put up much of a fight.

"I thought this might help with the cold," Alex said

"I was wondering why you looked so pleased with yourself today," replied Elizabeth.

Alex pulled out a silver hip flask and unscrewed it.

"Here, take a swig of this, Jackson. My Dad's one of those alcoholics who passes himself off as a connoisseur, so I'm pretty sure it's top-shelf shit."

The flask was cold and sturdy in my hand. The whiskey inside smelled like maple syrup and vanilla. I lifted it to my lips and took a long pull. It went down smoothly. I felt its warmth gather in my stomach before spreading pleasantly to my lungs, heart, fingers, and toes.

I looked around at my friends, and they all seemed beautiful to me. I was overwhelmed by a feeling of fondness for each of them. Now, all those afternoons of my youth spent alone in my room seemed like a bad dream.

"Drain You" played on the portable radio. Feeling more self-assured and confident than I ever had in my life, I stood up and looked Taylor in her eyes.

"From one baby to another, can I have this dance?"

"You're an idiot, but yes."

Cobain wailed while we swayed. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alex bury his face in Elizabeth's cleavage. She giggled and ran her hand through his hair.

Taylor and I waltzed our way onto the frosty grass. Our matching boots crunched the frozen blades, adding our personal percussion to the song.

"How did I know you'd be a clumsy dancer?"

"Same way I knew you'd be indecently graceful," I said.

"You look serious, Jackson. That's no way to go through life."

"I like you, Taylor."

"What's not to like?" she said.

Light, watery snow began to fall, and a new song began to play on the radio, something mournful and nostalgic. The black trees stood like iron gargoyles all around us. The light from a clear winter sunset shone defiantly through the ice-locked branches, illuminating the frosty grass blades beneath us. Her warm lips pressed lightly against mine--she tasted like whiskey and cigarettes. The wind blew biting and cold all around us, but for a moment, all was warm and still between us. I pulled her in close and felt her breasts press against me. I deepened the kiss and felt her pierced nipples harden and her hips arch toward me. I felt myself grow hard, and I knew she would feel me press against her soon, so I pulled away. I didn't know it then, but from that evening onward, love and confidence would be irreparably tangled with the warmth of whiskey and the inviting curves of a woman's body.

That night, we made plans to go to a loft party in Brooklyn to watch Alex's band play. He went along early to set up, so Taylor invited me to her Mom's apartment on the Upper East Side to pregame. I went home to change clothes and then took the metro uptown. The apartment building was obscenely luxurious. I gave my name to an old Puerto Rican doorman who nodded and pressed the elevator for me.

"19th floor, Sir."

"Uh, thanks."

Elizabeth answered the door in her bra and sweats with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. My eyes fell to her large breasts, straining against the restraints of the bra.

"They're happy to see you, too."

"I wasn't, I uh didn't mean--"

"It's fine, I'm only teasing you. Taylor and I will be ready soon. You can hang out in the living room and work on this." She handed me a flask, smiled mischievously, and mimed for me to keep my eyes up. I watched her skip back down the hall and disappear into Taylor's bedroom. Soon after, I heard a chorus of laughter that must have been at my expense.

It grew stormy outside, MTV played loudly on the TV, but between songs, the wind made itself heard as it moaned and shrieked around the high rises. It felt good to sit there on the soft couch while the winds broke around me. I finished the flask and took a long drag on a cigarette. I walked to the window and looked out at the apartment buildings across the street. People were getting home from work, turning on the lights, running baths, and cooking dinner. As I watched one of the windows, a woman got out of a shower, revealing, for an instant, small latte colored breasts and dark brown nipples before covering herself with a towel. My heart quickened. I could look at these windows for a long time, I realized. Something about the randomness and intimacy of their images excited me.

The apartment was huge with a spacious open concept living room, parlor, and kitchen in the front, and then a long hallway on the east side with most of the bedrooms. Taylor's room was the third on the left. It was closed, so I knocked.

"You guys going to be ready soon?"

"Don't rush art, freshmen!" Elizabeth yelled through the door

"There's whiskey in my dad's old study. Grab us a bottle, Jackson," said Taylor.

"Ok, do you care which one?"

"Just bring one that's already opened and be quiet. The master bedroom is next door, and my mom likes to nap when she gets home."

"Ok, no problem."

The study was dominated by a large polished desk and a high-backed leather chair. It smelled like cigars and cologne. I looked under the desk and pulled out a bottle of scotch and took a swig.

"God damn, that is good."

I turned to leave, but a flash of movement caught my eye. The door separating the study from the adjacent room was slightly open, and someone had walked past the gap. I thought of the window girl getting out of the shower. I turned off the lights and walked quietly up to the door, propelled by some base instinct that had found itself emboldened by the whiskey.

Through the gap, I could see a large, lavishly decorated Victorian bedroom with a king-size bed, red Persian carpets, and dark wood furniture. On the far side of the room, a middle-aged woman in a pantsuit stood in front of a dresser and mirror. She had dyed black hair tied back in a bun. She did not look much like Taylor except for her face, which was beautiful like her daughter's, though with wider lips and softer eyes. The similarities stopped there, though. Where Taylor was blonde and thin, she was dark and voluptuous to the point of being obese, but the weight was well distributed around her hips and breasts. She had giant breasts held firm by a fortified bra underneath a silk blouse. As I watched, her hands moved to her chest. One button gave way to another, and then the top was off. Nothing I hadn't seen at the beach or the pool, but she did not know I was watching, and that was an exciting thought. She had a far away look in her eyes as she scratched the red marks on her stomach where the shirt had been pressed too tightly into her soft, pale skin.

"What's taking so long, Freshman?" Elizabeth called

A flash of white hot panic shot through my chest, and I pulled away from the door. Guilty, I rushed back to Taylor's room. Elizabeth opened it, snatched the bottle away, and took a swig. Her goth-style makeup was half done, and her corset was half laced, showing off an ample amount of cleavage. I had a thought of Taylor's mom trying to put on a corset, and the thought made me smile.

"Like what you see, Freshman?"

I forced myself to look her in the eyes. "Um, what? Oh yes, you look cool!'

"Such a gentleman, thank you for the medicine." She smiled at me and winked.

"Yeah, no problem," I said, looking her straight in her dark eyes as she adjusted her corset.

"You want to get in here and give us a hand? If you sit where I am and tilt you head you can just barely make out Taylors little boobies"

My eyes darted to the other side of the room, where Taylor was wrapped loosely in a towel, painting her nails. I blushed involuntarily but forced myself to look back at Elizabeth.

"Oh, leave him alone, Liz. We'll be done soon, help yourself to more alcohol from the study if you want."

I retreated to the study and took a seat at the desk. The door to the bedroom dominated my peripheral vision. I thought of Taylor and her flushed red cheeks and damp hair. I thought of her firm breasts and long legs. There was no reason to go back to the door. I poured myself a glass to distract myself and drank it down. Just a quick look, maybe? Taylor told me to go back to the study, but I didn't know her mom was changing... There was plausible deniability. Right?

She was shimmying out of her skirt, laboring to get it over the wide flair of her hips. The tension built as her arm muscles tensed and her face reddened, till mercifully it slipped off and over her considerable ass and pooled upon the ground. She stepped out, and I noticed that one plum colored, unusually long nipple had slipped out of her bra. I felt myself get hard. It was like staring at a candle in the dark; the longer I looked, the harder it was to look away. Everything was in darkness except for her. She reached to undo her bra, the tension momentarily lifted her heavy breasts higher, and I held my breath. The bra fell to the floor. Her breasts were enormous and beautiful with a natural sag. She turned sideways in the mirror and sighed as one hand traced her full stomach, but I couldn't take my eyes off her impossibly wide hips and fleshy ass. She looked so sad, I had an insane urge to say something to her, to tell her she was beautiful and sexy as hell, besides that.

"We're ready, Jackson!"

"Hurry up, Freshman!"

The woman turned her head, and I pulled back away from the door, heart racing. Did she see me? Fuck. I walked quickly away from the study, feeling a little sick.

"What took you so long? Are you wasted already?" Asked Taylor.

The girls had finished getting ready and were standing in the kitchen.

"No, well, yes, actually."

"Light weight," She said, smiling.

I re-lit my cigarette and took a deep pull. I was feeling dizzy. That was wrong, I shouldn't have looked. But I couldn't quite bring myself to regret it. I had never seen a woman that large, that naked. I wondered what it would be like to make love to a woman like that, to lose yourself in mounds of soft, warm flesh.

Taylor wore high black boots, a black trench coat, and a low-cut tight cocktail dress all in the same shade of black. Her blonde hair was purposefully disheveled, and she was every bit as beautiful as any movie star, and she knew it.

"I look fat in this, don't I?" asked Elizabeth

"No, you don't look fat in a corset, idiot."

The girls laughed and Elizabeth adjusted her Top.

"Just kidding, I know I look good. The poor freshman can barely keep his eyes up."

"That's not true."

"Only kidding, of course, he only has eyes for you, Tay."

I blushed. If only she knew.

"Do you think Alex likes me?" Elizabeth asked from wing.

"I think he'd like to sleep with you." Said Taylor

"That's not the same thing."

"What's the difference?'

"I don't know, nothing much, I guess."

We each poured one more shot for the road and drank them down quickly. The cab picked us up soon after. Sitting there in the cab with Taylor and Elizabeth, I felt very important and cool. It's good to feel like that about yourself; it does not happen often enough.

The loft was one of those old industrial warehouses with high ceilings. It was dark and smoky inside, full of hard surfaces --brick, cement, and iron --with huge windows that looked out over the water. Manhattan was reflected on the blurry black surface of the sound. Alex's band was setting up on a makeshift stage. The crowd was wandering around like a herd looking for something. I danced next to the girls for a while, occasionally catching flashes of silver and pink when Taylor's dress pulled away from her chest.

I was quite drunk by then, and feeling wonderful, but Elizabeth was on edge, and I got to feeling kinda nervous for her.

"I'm going to go talk to Alex," She said

"Don't be that girl, Lizzy," Taylor said, "I've got something better anyway." She pulled out a little white bag of cocaine.

"We've been here 5 minutes, Tay, how the hell did you find that already?" Elizabeth said

"Hey, wanna watch the freshman try coke?" Taylor said, ignoring the question.

"Sure, what the hell," Elizabeth said.

The three of us moved to a couch in the corner. There was a coffee table there with magazines. Taylor pulled a copy of Vogue and started pouring out the Coke. It fell like snow across the cover girl's dark hair and made her look old. With a credit card, she brushed the model's hair clean and formed a neat line. She did her line quickly in one fluid movement and came up smiling.

"That's better."

She lined up another, this one for me. I bent down and did it quickly so that I wouldn't have to think about it very much. It burned my nose and numbed my throat, but it also cleared my head pleasantly. I noticed myself sitting up straighter and opening my eyes wider.

"I like that," I said.

"That was smooth, Jackson," Taylor said.

We did a few more lines together. Alex's band started playing. Elizabeth got up first to go watch him. Taylor sat on the couch with me, passing a flask back and forth. Her legs were warm through her dress, and it felt good to have them pressed against me. The booze pressed down on us, bringing us together. Everything was a little unfocused and unreal, and then we were kissing. My world shrank to the size of her lips, the feeling of her pierced nipple hardening through the cocktail dress. The smell of her perfume and the taste of her mouth. I touched her breast with my right hand, then recklessly slid it into the top of her dress and felt the warm silver and soft flesh of her breast. I took her nipple between my fingers, and she moaned in my ear. I grew painfully hard. Her tongue plunged deeper into my mouth, and she pulled me closer. I removed my hand from her chest and ran it tentatively up her thigh under her dress. I paused momentarily, but she didn't protest, so I plunged ahead. I found her damp lips with my index finger; she was cleanly shaved and smooth and warm. I felt her clitoris, small and erect under her thin panties. I began to massage her, and she broke off our kiss and moaned. She grew wetter, I pulled her panties to the side, and I kept going. She began to grind herself against my hand. I felt a growing tension, like we were building towards something.

"Taylor, I'm sorry, I need some help real quick." Said Alex.

"Shit, yeah OK. Sorry, Jackson." She said

She jumped off the couch. Her skirt had ridden up her thigh, so she pulled it down and shimmied her hips a little as she did. She left with Alex, not looking back at me. It made me sad to watch her walk away. I should've done something more.. Fingered her better? I don't know. And when the hell did Alex get off the stage? I stayed on the couch and pulled on the flask some more. After a while, I started feeling better. I smelled her on my fingers, heavy and sickly sweet. I got it into my head that I was very much in love with her. Once I made that decision, my sadness seemed very important to me.

I was tired of sitting on the couch, so I got up and joined the crowd. I didn't know what we were all looking for in the dark like that, but it was exciting because it always seemed like something was about to happen. Everywhere people we making out and and dry humping. Girls had their tops pulled down to their waists and were wrapping their legs around their partners. A man was blowing the drummer from Alex's band in the corner. I drank more.

I walked to the balcony and opened it. The air was nice out there; it blew in cold and fresh off the water. Someone had put up heaters, and I stood close to one, feeling its warmth on the back of my shoulders and my neck. The lights of Manhattan were lighting up the dark water, and they were spinning. The spinning kept getting stronger and stronger, to the point of unpleasantness. I stumbled to the edge and threw up. It burned going out and steamed in the night air. I felt worse till I did it a few more times. Then I felt OK.

"Shit you okay, Jackson?" Asked Elizabeth, putting her hand on my shoulder.

"Yeah, I feel better now, thanks."

Her eyes were puffy, and her mascara was running. She had a kind of faraway look in her eyes.

"Did you throw up too?"

"What, oh no, I just had a fight with Alex. He said I was being too clingy and that he needed more space."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"That's okay, couples fight sometimes." She said, pulling out a couple of white pills from her pocket, "Could I borrow your flask?"

"Sure."

She swallowed down the two pills and smiled contentedly.

"Love kinda sucks Jackson."

"I dont know, it's not so bad."

"It hurts worse than anything."

"But it's kinda a good hurt."

She laughed at that and wiped her nose on her arm.

"How old are you again?"

"18."

"18! Christ, are you a virgin?"

"No."

"You sure talk like one. You should know that Taylor isn't always nice to those who love her."

"She's been nice to me."

"Just be careful is all I'm saying. Don't do anything stupid for her. The last boy she was playing with en--"

She doubled over, clutching her stomach.

"Liz?"

She collapsed onto the floor of the balcony. I put my hands on her trembling frame. Her eyes were wide and unseeing. I picked her up, and she was lighter than I thought possible. I carried her to a couch on the balcony and laid her down.

"Liz. Liz. Elizabeth!"

She didn't answer. She slumped over on the couch like she was sleeping. I ran inside to get help.

Taylor wasn't anywhere on the main floor, so I mounted the stairs to the lofted second floor. The steps were steep, and I fell, banging my left shin hard against the concrete. It didn't hurt for some reason, but the force of it startled me.

The top room hung suspended above the party like a great flying saucer. It was warmer than the lower floor. It smelled like sweat and chlorine and sex. The mixture excited me and repelled me. There were a dozen people lying around, though none of them seemed to notice me. There was a large bed in the middle of the room, and a couple lay there in their underwear, making out and petting each other. The rest of the people were lying on the ground. In between and amongst them were syringes and burnt spoons and little brown bags filled with what looked to me like brown sugar but probably wasn't.

No one cared that I was there; they all had faraway looks in their eyes, and most of them were slumped in on each other. There was something unsettling about it all. I felt the room start to spin again, so I went to the bathroom. The bathroom was very bright, and someone screamed when I opened the door. Inside was a couple, embracing. The woman was sitting on the sink with her legs wrapped around the head of a thin tattooed man with a belt tied around his bicep. They looked at me. The girl had screamed, but now she was quiet, and the man looked mildly annoyed. I would have liked to have left immediately, but my senses were overwhelmed. I tried very hard to turn and walk away, but instead, I threw up on the floor.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," said Alex

"Fucking perv," said Taylor.

I wiped my mouth, "Sorry, sorry,' I said, hesitating

"Oh shit." Alex said.

His mouth was shiny and wet. This didn't make any sense.

"What's wrong, Jackson?"

"Elizabeth is sick."

"What?" Taylor said, pulling her dress down and pushing Alex away.

Alex sat down on the floor, staring blankly at the toilet, tapping his toes together.

"She's on the balcony. She passed out. I don't know what to do." I began to cry. I felt young and helpless.

Taylor came down the stairs with me, and we found Elizabeth. Taylor pulled something from her trench coat. She slapped Liz very hard, and Liz mumbled a bit. Taylor made her inhale something, and she woke up.

Alex came down the stairs barefoot with his shirt misbuttoned and the belt still around his arm. Some people from the crowd cheered.

"Is she going to be alright?" He asked.

"Yeah, she's okay, nothing laced or anything, she probably just didn't eat enough."

"I've.. Um, well, we already took the money for this gig, I need to play a few more sets.. Do you think you could... you know?"

"I'll bring her back to my place. She'll be OK."

"Thanks, Tay, for everything."

The cab ride back was black and murky. I focused very hard on the lights of cars ahead of us, but the horizon line refused to lie flat, and I fought to keep the vomit down. Taylor was cradling Elizabeth's head in her lap and petting her hair. The cab driver was looking up her skirt in the rearview mirror. I threw up over the dashboard and passed out.

I woke up in a room that looked familiar but profoundly wrong. I wasn't in my apartment. Where was-- "Oh my fucking head, Jesus Christ."

"Good morning to you, too."

A large, pretty woman in a thin tank top, pajama pants, and a bathrobe was sitting next to my bedside. She put a warm hand on my forehead and smiled at me. Where did I know her from? And then it started to come back.

"You're Taylor's Mom, aren't you?"

"Yes, sweetie, I am, though I don't believe we've properly met. You can call me Carol if you'd like. My daughter tells me that your name is Jackson. Is that right?"

"Yes, Ma'am. I am so sorry, I don't really remember what happened or--"

"How you got hear? Well, there's not much I can tell you, I'm afraid the story started for me around 2 in the morning when my daughter stumbled in with our doorman, and a cab driver carrying two unconscious classmates. For my part, I wrote a rather large check and told the doorman to put you down in this guest bedroom.

"Oh no, I'm really sorry, I can pay you back, I promise."

She laughed at me in a maternal way.

"Please don't worry about money, sweetheart. Lord knows I haven't for a long time now. No, the only debt you owe me is one of lost sleep, but now that I see that you are alive and well.. not quite well, but out of the woods, shall we say, I will be off to settle that balance."

She stood up and tightened the robe around herself. I had a flash of memory, I saw her in a tight bra. She had long, dark nipples. She was self-conscious in front of the mirror.

"Thank you so much for taking care of me, and um.. I, uh, think you are very beautiful."

A strange look flickered across her face and then evaporated into a casual smile.

"And I think you are still drunk, but thank you anyway. A woman of my age and ah.. dimensions learns to live off fewer and fewer compliments, but the ones that do come are all the sweeter for that."

She left, and I closed my eyes. Christ, maybe I am drunk? She just looked so sad in front of that mirror last night, and oh god, last night. I made a movement to stand, but my stomach rebelled, and I went down, holding my head.

"I'd tell you it gets easier, but that would be a lie."

Taylor was leaning on the door frame, wearing only a baggy black t-shirt and last night's makeup. She was holding a plate of Pop-Tarts and a large iced coffee.

"You should try and stomach some food, it will help."

She strolled into the room and sat down on the bed. She made a move to hold my hand, but my body stiffened. She frowned at me and knit her eyebrows.

"Do you want to talk about last night?"

"Is Liz OK?"

"Yeah, she's fine. It's me you should be worried about. That girl snores like a buzz saw, I thought my head might split."

She grabbed my hair and pretended to pull my skull apart.

"Ow! Easy, I have no trouble picturing it, thank you."

She laughed at that.

"Yeah, I bet! Did you remember to drink any water, Freshman, or was it whiskey the whole night through?"

I dry heaved. Which sent her into another fit of laughter.

"Here, have a Pop-Tart."

"What happened last night?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean..."

What did I mean? I tried to think back. I remembered drinking and seeing her mom changing. I saw Elizabeth in her corset. I saw cocaine on a cover girl on a magazine-- or was she a real person? I had kissed Taylor, I had seen her nipple, no, touched her I had felt her pussy but then she left and Liz oh poor liz. And then something that made my stomach hurt worse, but I didn't know why. I had gone to get Taylor and Alex, but something was wrong. Were they fighting? Fucking? No, that would be crazy.

"Where did you go after um--"

"After you almost made me cum all over my favorite dress?"

"Um, yes, that"

"Oh well, our idiot guitarist thought it would be a good idea to mainline some heroine halfway through his set, so I was helping him sober up a bit, you know stroking his hair pulling trig, splashing cold water-- real momma bird shit. Not how I wanted to spend my night, but with friends like these."

"I'm sorry I passed out."

She shrugged and fed me some Pop-Tarts. I began to relax; it was all a bit fuzzy now. I had thought something else was happening, but no, that doesn't make any sense. A blurry image of Taylor spreading her legs around Alex's head floated through my mind, but I waved it away. Taylor wouldn't do that to her best friend... or to me.

"Mind if I get into bed with you? I seriously can not go back to the Thunder Dome right now."

"Yeah, sure." I said.

She pulled up the comforter and crawled into bed. She was warm and smelled like perfumed cigarettes and musk. She moved closer to me, and I could feel her warm legs press against mine. I had a swollen bump on my shin and no idea how it got there.

"Are you seriously wearing jeans?"

"I don't exactly remember falling asleep. Or getting home at all, actually."

"That's no excuse. Get them off now, I don't want the subway on my sheets."

"Isn't this a guest room?"

"It's the principal, smart ass."

Her fingers moved quickly and, in one practiced motion, had my belt undone and slid out of my Levi's.

"Don't make me do the buttons too, or I'm going to whip you with this."

"Easy, Jesus OK! They are coming off."

I pulled them off and threw them to the side of the room. She took a long sip of coffee and smiled at me.

"See, isn't that so much better?"

She inched closer to me under the sheets and rubbed her leg against mine. I felt myself get hard, which was a welcome distraction from the throbbing in my head. I rolled over and spooned her. I knew she would feel my erection soon, but it seemed easier to let my body ask the question. She backed up into me, and her hips began to grind slowly. My cock pressed hard against the material of my briefs and her warm inner thighs pressed back against me.

"Taylor?"

"Take them off," she whispered.

I stripped my underwear down quickly and kicked them to the foot of the bed. In my enthusiasm to resume my previous position, I smacked my hip against her small firm ass and felt myself slip between her hairless inner thighs.

"How bad do you want me, Freshman?"

In response, I began to rock my hips back and forth, sliding my throbbing cock in and out of her thighs. The friction was too much, but I couldn't stop--I needed her.

"I saw it in your eyes when we first met. You looked like you wanted to worship me."

She reached back and grabbed my cock with cool soothing fingers. I hadn't realized how much heat the dry humping had produced. Her finger guided me higher and higher up her legs. I eagerly anticipated the feeling of her panties, but it never came. Instead, I felt the head of my cock press against the wet lips of her naked pussy. I started rocking again, using her wetness to lubricate each stroke. I felt myself brush past her clitoris with one thrust, and she moaned quietly-- that drove me crazy. My headache was forgotten, my body, myself, everything had been cast away, and all that remained was the warmth and wetness between her legs and the smell of her sex, like overripe fruit and earth.

"After we met, did you jack off thinking about me?"

"Yes"

"You couldn't take your eyes off my tits. Did you imagine what it would feel like to hold them? To taste them? To bite them till I moaned?

"Yes. Oh God, Taylor."

I pushed my hand up under her shirt. Her skin was feverish under my fingers. I took her left breast into my hand--I could almost close my fingers around all of her. I pinched her pierced nipple and felt my cock twitch between her legs.

"Do you have a condom?" I asked.

I felt her hand close around my cock and tighten. I throbbed in her hand. She guided me to her pussy lips and slipped me inside of her. She gasped so loudly that I held my breath.

"Won't someone hear?"

"Fuck me, Jackson!"

I pushed all the way inside her and held her tightly in my arms. I pushed as deep as I could and let myself throb there for a moment while she moaned and rocked her hips back and forth. I rocked back and forth slowly at first and then faster. Not pulling out all the way, keeping myself deep inside her.

"Fuck me harder, baby."

Her voice had a rasp from last night's party that turned me on even more. I lost myself in the rhythm of our hips. I fucked her as hard as I could. Sweat began to run down her lower back and bead on my forehead and chest. I felt her pussy begin to tighten around me as her breathing became more labored.

"Jackson don't stop don't you dare fucking stop."

"Are you on the pill?"

"Don't fucking stop ahh--"

She screamed into the pillow in front of her and started rocking her hips like crazy. I fucked her hard through her spasms. Her hand shot down to her clitoris, and she began to massage herself. I grabbed her right breast and squeezed hard as I felt myself lose control. I looked up and saw the outline of a large woman standing in the hallway looking in through the crack of our door. She had one hand around her mammoth left breast, massaging it underneath a grey tank top. Her right hand was down her pants, playing with herself. I made eye contact with her and saw her eyes widen as I exploded inside her daughter.