"So, you probably wonder why did i take you to this forbidden town in the middle of nowhere?"
Jim wanted to hear exactly that. He recently turned eighteen and desperately wanted to spend the summer at the beach, but his mother insisted for him to join her on her trip to this town in the Apallachian mountains.
True, the town was charming, and the sights breathtaking. But what he could be possibly doing here for fun? Nature walks weren't really his style.
He looked at his mother. At forty, she retained her youthful beauty. She was slim, which was made even more apparent by the white t-shirt with bare midriff and the tight shorts she was wearing. Her hair were jet-black and cut short. Her rather firm breasts strained against the fabric with each her breath. The way she looked at him was curious - almost sensual. This made Jim feel at once uneasy and excited - uneasy, because he sensed that his feelings towards her were wrong - and excited, because this stare stirred in him the longings he was trying so hard to suppress. In other words, his mother - Daliah - looked feminine, and he wasn't used to thinking of her as a woman... Or rather, he always did his best not to think of her in these terms.
They were seated on a couch in a motel room. The room itself was rather plain, with a landscape painting hanging on the wall, a double-bed, a couch and a single window.
"I will demonstrate it to you", his mother said.
She opened her purse and produced a single coin, then laid it on the table. Then she seemed to concentrate - and the coin floated into the air.
Jim gasped.
Daliah released her concentration, and the coin fell back to the table.
"Are you some kind of a - psychic?", he asked.
"Not really", she said, "You see, you and I are actually a part of - diaspora. People who left the land of Meirenn, for various reasons."
"Meirenn?"
"A magical land you'd say... Well, the town we're currently in is a hub of this diaspora. And I'm actually - you'd say - a sorceress. A sorceress in exile."
"What can you do, really?", Jim's voice was shaking.
"Create simple things, destroy them, strip a man or a woman by will", she smiled when she said that, "Among other things."
"Will you teach me all that?"
"The downside is that", she ignored his question, "other inhabitants of this town are also sorcerers and sorceresses, with similar abilities. Stripping included. The good thing is that we're not going back to our old life. From now on, the dreary day-to-day existence we've led in exile is past, and we start a new life of adventure. But it's not the best part."
But before Daliah could say what is the best part, someone knocked on the door.
Jim could almost hear his mother whisper "Oh no" as she went to answer it.
Daliah opened the door and went to the corridor. She was greeted by another woman with a husky voice.
"Airan is back", the voice said.
"Is this how you greet old friends?", his mother answered.
The voice laughed.
"We've been always competing, don't you remember? For power, for men. Speaking of men, this son of yours looks pretty handsome. Did you?..."
"No."
"But you want to?"
No answer.
"Ok, dear", said the voice, "There's still some time before nightfall. I imagine you want to show him some motherly love, Meirennian style? I have a different idea. I'll bed this lad before you do. I'll have him tied naked in my bed, to do with him as I please. You'll be tied-up, equally naked, to the whipping-pole in my bedroom that you can witness all that I'm doing to him, and so that he can see you as well, tormented by the sight of your beautiful body that he can't touch... If you forgot, the name of this practice is tairinian and is practiced by jealous women on heterosexual couples, be they boyfriend or girlfriend, husband and wife, brother and sister, or mother and son..."
"Was this lecture for my sake?"
"No. But I imagine you're not there alone, are you?"
The woman laughed again.
"Better have your sonny right next to you. If he goes for a walk, I can guarantee that he finds you hogtied naked in your room. That would have been embarrassing, wouldn't it?"
The woman giggled and left.
Daliah went back to the room and shut the door.
Jim sat on the couch, his heart still beating from what he heard.
His mother sat next to him. She took a deep breath and said:
"... the best part is that the restrictions put on sexuality here on the Earth are non-existent in Meirenn. No kind of relationship is thought as evil, as magic takes care of the consequences of such acts... It's a very sensual place, Jim, and the town we're in is on the verge of it."
She turned to her son and leaned down to him. Jim realized her lips were now dangerously close to his.
"But I guess you've already found out."