Strange. Neurotic. Burden.

[sunmoonandspoon]

Title: Strange. Neurotic. Burden.
Author: speaky_bean
Characters/Pairings: Teru/Ms. Mikami
Rating: R
Word Count: 4,350
Warnings: This is probably one of the most disturbing things I’ve written in a long time. This story contains parent-child incest, non-consensual sexual activity and a minor in a sexual situation. By minor I do not mean a teenager. I mean someone who hasn’t even hit puberty yet. If you are uncomfortable with this, please do not read. I cannot emphasize this enough. I tried my best to deal with the subject in a way I thought appropriate—meaning I did not glorify it in any way. It is written as the bad, unhealthy, damaging, terrible thing that child molestation is. However, it is written from the point of view of the perpetrator, so things get pretty skewed sometimes.

It’s also in second person. Originally it was going to be in third, but it just didn’t want to be written that way.



Strange. Neurotic. Burden.

These are not flattering terms, and it’s dreadful that those are the only terms that come to mind when you think about your only son. It’s not that you don’t love him, (of course you do, you have to love your son, especially if there’s no father around to love him for you) but sometimes (like right now when he’s slumped over on the kitchen table nursing wounds that could have been prevented if he’d only listen to you) you just can’t make yourself think of anything except those three damning words.

Right now, Teru is dabbing at a hideous scrape with a wad of toilet paper soaked in rubbing alcohol, and all you can think about is how you can’t afford another bottle of rubbing alcohol until next week. You try to remind yourself that you don’t actually need rubbing alcohol for the most part, that this is the only purpose it ever serves. If his wounds get infected it will cost you even more (and he’ll be sick, he’ll complain, he’ll make you crazy!) and you know that the pain he’s in should matter more than the way he’s inconveniencing you, but you told him again and again to stop pretending he’s a superhero, to keep his mouth shut and go along with things like a normal child and he just. Won’t do it. He says something about how much his ankle hurts, he twisted it or something, and you mutter darkly, “well Teru, who’s fault is that?” And then you bite your tongue and pretend you didn’t say anything. Another minute and you ask, “what happened to your ankle?”

You know what happened to his ankle. He threw himself in the middle of a conflict, gave an unwanted sermon and got tossed to the side. He valued the momentary convenience of his classmate over his own physical well-being, and his mother’s sanity. He imposed his morals on someone else and was hurt because of it. “Teru,” you say, knuckles digging into your eye. He doesn’t answer, just stares at the ground. When he tilts his head you can see that his glasses are twisted. They will break soon, and you’ll have to pay for that. Another 20,000 yen down the drain. “Tell me what happened to your ankle,” you say. He just shakes his head. Stands up and walks with a hideous, dragging limp towards his room. “Teru!” you say, grabbing at his bony wrist. “What happened? You shouldn’t hide things like this from your mother. What if it’s serious?”

“It’s nothing!” he insists, wrenching himself from your grasp. As he tries to make his exit, he falls. There’s no time to do anything to protect what’s already been damaged, and so his ankle hits the floor when he does. He cries out in pain and you bury your face in your hands.

“You need help,” you say, extending your arm and praying he’ll take it. Knowing that he will struggle upwards on his own. “Let me help you. You’re only going to hurt yourself more if you don’t.” Still he doesn’t accept your help. Still he tries to pretend that he isn’t in pain. This makes no sense to you—why tell her about it when it isn’t obvious, and then deny it when it is? You ignore his protests and drag him to his feet. Wrap your arms around him so that he can’t try to walk on his own. “How did you hurt your ankle?” you ask, trying to ignore the way his glasses make dents in your breasts when you hold him towards you. He’s gotten taller. It used to be your ribs that bore the marks.

“I…just…was trying to…I’m sorry. I know you don’t like it when I do this, but it has to be done. I can’t just let people get hurt and not do anything, I’d never be able to forgive myself...” And still he doesn’t tell you anything about what happened or who hurt him specifically. You think that maybe he fell in the middle of it, or that the ‘good guy’ hurt him by mistake. Otherwise, he’d tell you. Teru’s not the type to protect those he deems guilty, after all.

Or maybe he’s just in too much pain to talk about it. His ankle doesn’t look broken, but you don’t know how to tell if something’s broken or not—you yourself went for three months without realizing you’d broken your rib, after all. “You need to lie down for a while, okay?” you say, raking untrimmed nails through his damp-from-the-shower hair. “You shouldn’t be trying to walk if it hurts you this much, it’ll only make things worse. I know you hate missing school, but if you don’t rest now, you’re going to have to.”

This makes him listen. Teru doesn’t want perfect grades—actually he hates perfect grades, because they mess up his 98 average—but he wants them to be, well, 98’s. His teachers know better than to give him a 97, 99, or 100, but if he doesn’t score within that range, they won’t indulge him. He has to score within that range or he’ll lose it. Missing school will make him lose it. And so he lets his mother help him into bed.

~`~`~

None of the other mothers you know still stare at their sleeping children when those children are nearly twelve years old. Most of them kept a vigil over their dozing, drooling infants, especially when they fell asleep before their parents felt tired (a shame, because when else can you sleep but when the baby’s sleeping?) but none of them really kept this up once their precious miracle had been transformed into a gawky, awkward pre-teen who fought them at every turn.

Maybe it’s because your son is so difficult, but you always sit on the side of his bed after you’re sure that he’s asleep. You don’t stay for long—he’s a light sleeper, he’ll wake up and see you—but you do this every night. Even when you’re dead on your feet from a night shift and a lengthy commute home, you still spend a moment or two staring down at your sleeping son. Lying next to him and pulling stray feathers from his pillow, so he won’t notice that it’s falling apart and should have been replaced years ago. You tell yourself that that’s why you do it—to fix things that will cause conflict in the morning, make him start a fight with you.

That’s not why. You don’t just look for things to fix and leave the room. You sit with him. You stroke his hair, try to calm him down when nightmares make him toss and mumble. Though your friends don’t do this sort of thing with their children, you know that it isn’t abnormal. Technically, you made him. Technically, you have the right to watch him sleep.

Technicalities don’t matter. No matter how you try to spin it, you’re always an intruder in Teru’s room. That is why you flee when you think he’s waking up. Why you never leave any trace of your presence. You will willingly provide body heat to stay his shivering, but you won’t close the window and you won’t get him another blanket—he’ll know you were here if you do. Your presence is a sin and you have no idea why.

Right now, his injured ankle is dangling off of the bed. You aren’t sure, but you think that injuries ought to have support of some kind. It wouldn’t take more than a moment to correct this. All you’d have to do is shift him slightly, point him towards the wall. You wouldn’t even have to touch his ankle. But you’re frozen in place, you don’t dare to move him—he might wake up, guess that he’s been moved in the morning. This makes no sense and you know it—people shift in their sleep, Teru does all the time—but you find yourself stopped all the same. You leave his ankle dangling. Pluck a feather from the pillow, and leave him.

~`~`~

Morning comes and he doesn’t mention his ankle. Tries his best to disguise his limp. He eats his breakfast half-asleep, not bothering to time his bites the way he usually does. You find yourself timing them for him—usually he spends thirty seconds on each bite and waits for ten between each one. This means that breakfast takes eternity—you try to encourage things like toast that only take a few bites in the first place—but today it’s taking too long because he isn’t paying attention. Most likely, he didn’t sleep well last night. Pain will do that. You didn’t sleep well, either. Worrying will do that, too.

Right now you can’t really look at him. Half-asleep like this he looks like his father, and you haven’t thought about that scumbag in years. Okay, so he wasn’t exactly a scumbag. He left you and you’re bitter but you drove him to it, and you only had to take him to court once for your child support checks. Maybe once is too much. Maybe you’re right to call him a scumbag. Anyway your ex-boyfriend, your baby’s father, he never could wake up in the mornings. He’d hold his food in midair for minutes at a time, trying to summon the energy to eat it. Just like Teru’s doing now. They even squinted at the toast with the same sleepy, vaguely hostile eyes.

You always found those eyes to be enormously attractive. You thought Masato’s barely-conscious mumblings were a reason to push his chair back towards the wall and wrap your legs around his waist, sink your tongue into his crumb-filled mouth. Teru was conceived at the kitchen table, before Masato knew what was happening. You liked that. You liked being the one in control. You liked pressing your breasts against his neck and pushing the chair against the wall. Running your fingers through the grooves it made in the yellowed wallpaper the next day made you feel almost as powerful as the screwed-up look on his face when your fingers and your body took him places he’s never been and never will go now that he’s left you.

Right now, Teru looks exactly like his father. Like your lover pressed against the wall with only the chair to keep him from falling. Younger, yes. Your baby, yes. These things should probably matter more. You shouldn’t want to push him up against the wall like Masato.

But. You do. There seems to be something deeply, dreadfully wrong with you.

~`~`~

He mumbles a quick goodbye and he doesn’t sound like your ex-lover. His voice his high-pitched save for the vague cracklings of impending puberty. You wish this wasn’t so comforting. Wish you could stop yourself from staring at the slender neck peeking out from behind too-long black hair. You are not that kind of woman, and you don’t even know what that kind of woman implies. Is there even a categorization somebody who can’t tell the difference between her child and her lover?

“Have a good day at school,” you say, voice cracking with what you pray doesn’t sound to Teru like the lust you know it is. “Please don’t get into any more fights. Your face is too cute to be smashed in.” You tell yourself that that’s a nice, normal thing that moms say all the time. Everyone says their sons are cute, all your friends with boys say that, to embarrass them, because they’re even cuter when they’re embarrassed. Teru isn’t embarrassed. Teru merely stares at her, blankly, and limps outside.

~`~`~

You have to work, and you spend hours at work, but during your break you crack open the worn, cobalt photo album that contains all the photographs you bothered to get developed of your baby, as well as strips and strips of yellowed negatives, and a badly folded crayon drawing of a cow. He drew it seven years ago, and you remind yourself, he’s hasn’t even clawed his way towards adolescence. There are pictures here of Teru in a high chair, banging a plastic spoon against a wooden bowl; pictures of Teru sprawled out a duck-studded fleece blanket, chewing on the side with his eyes half-closed; pictures of Teru sobbing hysterically because he’s wearing one red sock and one blue. Why you took that last photo is beyond you, but there he is. An infant. There’s another picture where his whole hand is wrapped around your index finger, his legs are bowed and if your memory serves you right, he fell soon afterwards. He wasn’t quite able to walk at this point. You try your best to remember him that way.

Still you’re seeing the nape of his neck as he walks silently away from you. The sleepy coldness in his eyes as he tries to wake up and ignores you. There’s another picture where his stubby arms are wrapped around your neck and his face is pressed against yours. He’s smiling. He doesn’t do this anymore and this moody preadolescent isn’t the same as your baby.

This isn’t working. Your head is filled with poison and it won’t drain from your ears no matter what you do. When your break ends you put the photographs away and let your mind drift towards disrobing your son. When you prepare hot chocolate for a customer who’s so spaced out she wouldn’t notice if you spit in it, you’re spaced out too. You’re seeing Teru in the shower, bubbles clinging to his seal-black hair, water sliding down his stomach, his hip bones, his…you hand the customer her hot chocolate. Don’t dare let your mind slide into hell.

As you hand her the hot chocolate, you imagine your beady-eyed customer asking you if you’ve fallen in love. That happened to you once when you were pregnant (not showing, not yet) and you were bursting with love for Masato. You didn’t think he was ever going to leave you, then. You had replied to the inquisitive bus driver with a big, goofy smile, right now if anybody asked you, you’d vomit. Thank god, all she does is shove a coffee stirrer into the drink and collect her change. She doesn’t care about you.

~`~`~

At home you find yourself hoping that you’ll find Teru’s underwear strewn randomly about in the bathroom. Normal children aren’t as neat as he is (normal children don’t have mothers who crave to see their underwear) and it would put your mind at ease to see a sign of mess. To see anything that would make this into a normal household where you don’t want the terrible things that tumble through your brain.

Teru’s underwear is folded neatly into his dresser. Teru himself is working diligently at his homework. You should be proud that he’s so neat and well-mannered, that you don’t have to pester him to perform basic tasks. But you’re not proud and you’re not glad, because he’s not normal, and if he’s not normal then neither are you. And if he’s not normal and you’re not normal, then maybe it wouldn’t be so strange for you to free him of the underwear that he’s wearing right now.

~`~`~

Two days later he still walks with a limp, but there’s something lighter in his gait than there had been. As you unpack the groceries you think about asking him if he’s fallen in love. You put the milk away and then you screw up your courage and ask him—he’s bound to say no, but you want to watch his face morph into an angry, faux-indifferent stare. You want to imagine him kissing a little girl in his class, kissing a woman, kissing you. And so you ask him and he shocks you by saying, “well, not love exactly, but there is this girl…”

“What girl?” you ask, trying to conjure up the sort of female who would catch the interest of your boy. She would have short, clean hair that’s free of split-ends. Her eyes would sparkle like cleaning fluid, and her school uniform would be ironed and pressed to perfection. Or maybe she’d be something totally unexpected, a foul mouthed witch with heavy make-up and bleached hair. All you know is that she isn’t his mother. You shouldn’t let that fact be so sobering, shouldn’t let it grip your heart in a vice. “Tell me about this girl, Teru.”

“She’s just someone,” he mumbles, pre-teen apathy creeping into his voice. He sits at the table and takes the supplies out of his book bag, apparently ready to do his homework in the kitchen with his mother. This means he actually wants to discuss this. You’re going to have to root it out of him, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you. “Um, her name is Kobayashi. R-rika. She said I could call her Rika. I’m not sure if that’s appropriate, but she did ask me to, so…anyway. She’s really cute, and she says I’m a hero, so…I guess I kind of like her.”

You squash the childish idea that you ought to say that you agree with Rika; he’s a hero. You aren’t a little girl, willing to change all her opinions to capture the eye of a beautiful boy, you’re a mother. You can’t condone Teru’s dangerous behavior because you want him to like you. And so you put the cereal in a nearby cabinet and say, “oh, that’s sweet, honey. So are you going out, or do you just like her?”

“We’re not going out. I don’t have time for things like that, and besides, if you go out with someone, you have to kiss them, right?” He furrows his eyebrows in disgust, and he brushes nonexistent dust from his binder. “I don’t know about kissing. I’ve never done it before, and it sounds gross.”

“Well, maybe you’re a bit young for it now, but one day, you’re going to really like kissing, if it’s with the right girl. You’re going to like all kinds of things.” You say this with complete confidence, but Teru only shakes his head.

“No…there’s all that spit. Other people’s mouths have so much bacteria, how am I supposed to know if they’ve brushed their teeth? It just sounds so disgusting, I don’t get why anybody does it.” He says this with an air of finality, but you aren’t giving up yet. You sit down next to him at the kitchen table, closer than you know you should. You’re not sure what you’re trying to accomplish here. Normal mothers who don’t have strange, terrible thoughts must try to steer their children in the right direction—surely it isn’t right to think that something as natural as kissing is disgusting! Surely a good mother would correct her child!

And so you try to. You tell him that kissing has health benefits, that it works out your facial muscles and increases your heart rate. You tell him that it’s a great way to bond with your partner, that it feels wonderful, and that it is not unreasonable to request that they brush their teeth beforehand if it’s that important that they do. You try not to think about pressing your lips to his without brushing your teeth or using mouthwash. He continues to resist, says, “well maybe those things are true, but it’s still kind of pointless, and it’s a really great way to spread disease.”

You can’t bear the idea that your only child will never kiss anyone. Especially since your only child looks so like his handsome father. You stare him down, cock an eyebrow and asks if maybe he isn’t just afraid to make a move. You’re afraid to make a move, and you have much more at stake than he does. What he wants to do is embarrassing, what you want to do is illegal.

Somehow you move from illegal to acceptable. If Teru’s thoughts are orderly and logical, yours are a jumbled wreck. You say, “look, it’s not a big deal. I’ll show you,” and then you dive into his mouth, probing each tooth and aching with how clean they are. His lips are smoothed with something minty, and before you can figure out if it’s gum or chap stick, he pulls away from you. His eyes are wide with horror, and his glasses are fogging up. His lips form words but no sound comes out, and you knock his chair towards the wall. It fits perfectly into the grooves in the wall, and when you kiss him again his mouth is wide open in shock, this too fits perfectly.

He does not wrap his arms around your neck the way his father sometimes did, but you pretend that that’s because he’s too tired. You’re so close that his glasses press against the bridge of your nose, and your hands won’t stay in one place. They travel under his school shirt, rub his hard, sweaty stomach and head for the silver button on his pants. You tell yourself that this is just a kiss, just to show him what kissing is like, that this is normal. When you unzip him and he gasps with fear you tell yourself it’s pleasure, he likes it, there’s nothing wrong with this at all.

Your fingers curl around his penis (not grown yet, poking out of an extremely sparse gathering of coarse hair) and you grip it, hard. You don’t look into his eyes (they’re closed anyway, screwed up to stave of tears) and you don’t speak a word. You stroke the soft skin into a salute, and you feel him recoil in horror. His own reaction seems to scare him more than that which caused him.

This isn’t what you wanted (yes it is) but all the same you keep it up. The chair is groaning under both of your weight, so you slither to the floor, lick his penis like an ice cream cone. You remember how much he hates ice cream, because it melts so quickly and leaves a mess, and you wonder how much of a mess this will leave. You imagine ejaculate, a physical celebration, and then you realize that you aren’t sure if kids his age can ejaculate. Then you realize, he’s a kid, and he’s yours, and no matter what you tell yourself, this is not okay. He’s given up on not crying, but once you take your mouth away and look up at his tear stained face, he tries his best to stop. Works his devastation into an angry glare and says, garbled and confused, “Ma—Moth—Ms. Mika—Atsuko, you…that was…that was evil. G-god will…God will punish you for that. Or this police will, someone…you’re going to be punished. You are definitely not going to get away with this.”

This scares you, but not as badly as the sickening thought of what you’re capable of. Teru has called you evil before, when you told him intact bones with more important than pretending to be a superhero, that the playground skirmishes he broke up weren’t any of his business anyway. You stand by that, but you cannot stand by this. It helps that you hate the self-righteous smirk he’s got glued to his face, helps that he’s struggling so hard to keep it there. He buttons his pants and says that he will no longer consider himself your son. Fine by you. It’s probably better to molest a stranger than your child. He asks if you would tell him his father’s name, so he can use that instead of Mikami. “Masato doesn’t want anything to do with you,” you spit venomously as you pick yourself up from the kitchen floor. You don’t mention the child support checks, the vague inquiries that come once every year or so. You know his name, but you tell him you don’t, you’re not going through the trouble of getting Teru’s name changed for a second time, and you don’t want any more connections between the two of them.

Teru doesn’t seem to understand this. He shrieks that he has a right to know his father’s name, that he cannot possibly continue to use her name, he cannot continue to be associated with a sick, perverted freak like her, but he runs out of steam quickly. Sinks to the floor with tears streaming from his eyes, again. “He doesn’t want you,” you say gently. “He calls sometimes, but he would visit, if he wanted you. He’d ask to speak with you. It wouldn’t be right for you to take his name, he has never been a parent to you. I have.”

“What kind of parent does what you just did?!” he snaps, glasses sliding so far down his nose that they hang below his chin. “I know he doesn’t want me, I’m not expecting that! I just need something else to call myself, okay? I…I’ll go live with Grandma, or go into foster care or something. I can’t stay here, I’m going to put you in jail, I…” He trails off, sniffles loudly and adjusts his glasses. “I d-don’t…I don’t want you to be evil, Mama!”

“I’m sorry,” you say, sitting back down again because you probably shouldn’t tower over him, right now. There are no excuses, so you don’t make any. You simply watch him as he reacts to this, try to drain yourself of all desire to ever do this thing again. You need to stop him from calling the police and you don’t know how to. What you’ve done deserves punishment, Teru’s right. You think about humiliating him, telling him that if he were a real man, he’d appreciate the service of an attractive woman. You almost say this, but then, you don’t. You think about telling him you love him, that you’re far more strange and neurotic than he could ever be, but you don’t say that, either. Instead you just sit there, and listen to your precious burden cry.

Comments

[fliegenmaus.livejournal.com]

Oh wow...this was AMAZING. So distrubing yet written with such an entertaining undertone I couldn't stop reading even if I did flinch at some parts.

[speaky-bean.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Wow, I only just start talking to you and the first thing you see is my first stab at an incest!fic. Talk about timing. Anyway, your reaction is more or less exactly what I was aiming for--it was meant to be portrayed as disturbing, but I did want it to be a good read, too. Thank you very much for your comment.

[sakuraberries]

Oh. Wow.

I want to say beautiful, but that doesn't seem appropriate. Bitterly demented? I really liked this. The way you wrote it, second person, is very difficult to pull off, and you did it wonderfully. I truly could feel myself in her shoes.

The last paragraph is epic. Just...epic. This is really good writing.

[speaky-bean.livejournal.com]

Thank you! You're right, beautiful probably isn't the right word. I'd like to think that the language is beautiful, because I did strive for that, but of course I can't judge whether it is or not. I like 'bitterly demented', though. Second person is hard, but oddly it feels really natural to me, I've never had trouble with it. I'm bad with first person and past tense. I was worried that second person would be strange for a character doing such terrible things, but it just...wanted to be written that way. Anyway, I'm really glad you liked it, and I really appreciate your comment.

[starsplinter.livejournal.com]

...guh.

In a twisted and unhealthy way, it makes psychological sense. She's lonely and has no life outside of work (where no one cares about her) and her son. She's starved for affection and human contact, but she'll never admit that, and the only experience she knows of the affection she wants is sex. And the fact that she doesn't know how to acknowledge what she wants only compounds the problem.

I admit, I had to 'aww' when she was looking at the baby photos. Teru crying over his socks being different colors was just too cute... I don't know if was supposed to be, but it was. I'm not sure if this would fit into the series, because this is the sort of thing that would have been mentioned (besides, I'm not sure if Teru acts like someone who suffered parental abuse) but it's a solid possibility.

Honestly, I'm almost reminded of your Nano novel... it's got the same feel of thoroughly fucked-up families, and the same heart-wrenching accuracy. It's not the same sort of situation though, obviously.

I can only imagine what writing this must have felt like... I once wrote something that only looked like incest (it's complicate) and every couple of lines I just stopped and thought, "Woah, I'm actually writing this?....wow." And it wasn't anything near as blatant or intense as this. Kudos for being able to keep through it.

This is a fantastic, fantastic story on a very difficult subject. It's hard to say that I enjoyed it, because I'm not sure that's the right word, but I did, I think.

*thinks* I..think that was all I wanted to say. Sorry, it's been a long day and I should have started my homework an hour ago... *cough*


Seeya!


S

[speaky-bean.livejournal.com]

I'm glad this made some sense to you! She is pretty isolated, and she probably feels closer to Teru than to anyone else, and he resembles one of the only people she ever got real affection from. Wanting to have sex with your kid isn't the only possible outcome here, but it is one of many. And one thing I know to be true is that it's largely impossible to control what you want sexually--you can control whether you act on it, but not wanting it in the first place, not without hard psychological work.

Hee. I was going 'aww' over the photos too. Babies are adorable, and I wanted there to be a few moments of 'this isn't too horrible' in this fic, since it was largely very disturbing.

This wasn't so much about me trying to explain who he is in canon now. I don't think that this is part of his back story, or that anything like it was. I think his mother was neglectful and that they got along very badly, but I don't think she was abusive. That wasn't the point. The point was to explore how his sort of character would react to the situation, and to explore the progression that would lead to that kind of desire in the first place.

My NaNo? Hm, I guess I can see what you mean. With my NaNo...honestly, I just wrote whatever came most naturally with my NaNo, since it was my first time doing something that long in such a small space of time. As such, it uses many of the themes I like working with best. And yeah, this was very disturbing to write, I almost couldn't believe I was writing it. But I'm glad I took that challenge. Even if yours wasn't as blatant, I can still see being uncomfortable!

Good luck on that homework, and thank you very much for your in depth review!

[harleycooper.livejournal.com]

Intolerable.

The prose is dripping with Freudian juices that I can't stop myself from cringing in my seat because you delight me and I respond with nothing but gracious gratitude. Your mother-son incest theme is nothing short of adventurous; you took the risk and did well. Your descriptive paragraphs are as uncanny as ever with brisk, direct sentences. The story itself was evolving as the characters start to become real that it's almost painful. You portrayed the relationship with so much sensitivity and depth, visualizing the awkward sexual tension between a long-suffering single mother and her eccentric son. Like I have stated in one occasion, I'm a Freudian and this is an interesting literary piece. You continue to transcend my expectations for your caliber, Nana-sama. I am honored that I've met such a writer who always places intelligence and integrity in her craft. This story just proves it even more.

It's just too much. My soul is numb. Just reading how this poor mother wanted to show affection but had channeled it through wrong means; just reading how this son of hers sees the world so much in black and white and possesses a brutal wisdom and maturity...this goes beyond what is expected from you and you should congratulate yourself as I offer this plaudit.

Nana-sama, thank you for taking this risk. It is worth it. Praise-worthy! Brilliantly-conveyed emotions! Superb storytelling! Your Ms. Mikami reminds me of Fantine from Victor Hugo's Les Miserables especially the way she longs for her love lost, of her dream that died (if you watch the musical, the song "I dreamed a dream" fits the scenario in your story).

Now life has killed the dream I dreamed...

Bravo!!

[speaky-bean.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for your wonderful comment. You always have such nice things to say about my work, I'm always shocked by the strength of your reaction, and it really makes me happy that my words can produce that kind of emotion in another person. This story was definitely a risk for me--it's a subject that I had never dared to take on before, and I found it very difficult and uncomfortable to write because of that. I think that that's what makes something worth trying, though. If a piece is hard because of the subject matter, it's worth it. There's no point in writing only things that are easy and fun, you never really stretch yourself or grow that way. I love challenging myself to write new things, especially on subjects that demand to be treated with sensitivity--there is no way you can write about this subject without a lot of thought and care without it seeming very, very offensive to others. So, writing stuff like this forces me to use my brain, and I like that.

I really, really need to get around to reading Les Misrables. Since I am a lit student, I don't often get a chance to read what I want to, but it's definitely on my list of things to read in the future when I have time. It sounds like such a wonderful story, it's just that it's so long and it's so hard to find time to read what I want to read these days. But hey, if I can write a character that reminds you of a character in a classic like that, I must be doing something right!

Anyway, thank you so much for your lovely comment. ♥ It was great to hear from you.

[harleycooper.livejournal.com]

No problemo! It's my pleasure~!!

I wish you'd post this FFNet because I would like to review it again~ And yes, the subject is sensitive but you made it so realistic. You also got the message across. Freudian-incest themes get me very...attached too. I've read many novels about mother-son and father-daughter incest and so I've learned to tolerate the taboo. But then again, I'm also not for it because I see it sick and depraved. And your story was close to that truth but still very humane. And it really did remind me of Fantine, your improvised character of Mikami's mom. And one thing that struck me in whole is how Teru reacted...how enraged he is but at the same time he still couldn't accept that his mother can get like that around him.

I have yet to read your L/Matsuda/Light. I've skimmed it a little but I have no time to read it back then but I'll get back to it and leave you a comment as well!

I love challenging myself to write new things, especially on subjects that demand to be treated with sensitivity--there is no way you can write about this subject without a lot of thought and care without it seeming very, very offensive to others

On that note...well, I've been challenged to write something about people getting turned on sexually with fecal matter. I don't know if I should continue it but...I'm almost five pages of it so...any advice, Nana-san??

[speaky-bean.livejournal.com]

I think it might be against ff.net rules, but I might post it there. I am kind of debating this, since I'm not sure how many people I want to see it. I trust my f-list and I trust the members of dn_contest, but if I put it on a big site like ff.net, or even some of the larger fanfic comms on LJ, I'm kind of worried about getting flamed for the content. I'm still debating this.

I have read a few novels with parent-child incest, and it really doesn't bother me nearly as much to read about it as it does to write about it. I find it fascinating, but to actually create something on the subject is entirely different. Helps that I mentioned the idea to my sister, and she thought it was completely disgusting that I would try to write something like this. Oh well, I'm really glad that I did it, and I'm happy you think it turned out well. Also yeah, I think Teru's reaction would have to be a really conflicted one. It would be incredibly disturbing to have your mother react to you in such a way, especially when you are such a morally uncompromising person, like Teru is.

I would love to hear your thoughts on that piece! It has the most sex I've ever written in my life. XD; Writing sex scenes has never been my strong suit, but it was requested of me, and it's something I want to become more proficient in writing. I think I did okay! I hope so, anyway.

Very interesting challenge! I do think you should continue it, if you've already written five pages. It's worth a shot, and the worst that can happen is that it ends up not being very good, and then, so what? You can write something else that's better, or edit it until it is good. So, I don't know if you do find such things attractive or not. Regardless, I'm sure there's something you think is a turn-on that most people don't. Even if it's something normal, everyone has a unique sexuality. Think about why whatever unique turn-on you have is a turn-on. (If you really don't have anything, think about why whatever normal turn-on you have is one.) Then think about why fecal matter might turn somebody on. What is appealing about it?

One thing to remember is that when people have fetishes like this, they usually have them from a very young age, and they themselves might have no fucking clue why they're attracted to them. They will notice positive traits, of course. But they probably don't know why they have their fetish, and with something like a scat fetish, they're probably embarrassed about it. I don't know what kind of characters you're working with here, so a lot of their reaction depends on that, but just keep in mind that this usually an intractable part of the personality that might not have a clear origin.

Let me know if you need more help! Always happy to help with any writing problems I can.

[harleycooper.livejournal.com]

I think you're right! Your insights are helpful! I could challenge myself to continue writing on the subject. Coprophilia is a paraphilia; a sexual disorder that can be explored in a literary sense. And it can be traced to childhood now, right, and since I am a Freudian, I could indulge on this. Thanks a lot for the advice and encouragement. Once again, you make me brave enough to jump.

o__0 can you beta-proof it? I'm yet to finish HGIME too...I've been slacking off because I'm tired whenever I get home because of work.

[speaky-bean.livejournal.com]

That's right. Research the psychology of paraphilias, you should be able to find plenty of information. I think it's unlikely for there to be a specific incident that caused the paraphilia, it'd be a combination of things, but a child might be fascinated with something as a child that they later realize interests them sexually. This could be very interesting to explore, and I think you could do something awesome with it.

Yeah, sure I'll beta it. I've been kind of busy lately, but I'll find the time for it. Just...is it fanfic? Original? If it's a fanfic and it's a canon I don't know, you're going to need to give me some background.