Like Mother, Like Daughter
"His wife has always lived in her mother's shadow. When her mother starts showing up for 'visits' that last hours, his wife doesn't stop it—she competes. Side by side. Let him choose."
My wife has always been compared to her mother.
Same face. Same eyes. Same curves—though Jennifer's aren't quite as pronounced yet. At thirty-two, she's a preview of what Helen looked like at her age. At fifty-eight, Helen is a preview of what Jennifer will become.
The difference is weight.
Jennifer is maybe one-ninety. Curvy, thick in the right places, but contained. Helen is two-sixty and hasn't contained anything in decades. She takes up space. She demands attention. When she walks into a room, the room notices.
Jennifer has spent her whole life trying to compete.
She's about to stop trying.
It starts with visits.
Helen lives forty minutes away. Close enough to drop by, far enough that it requires planning. After Jennifer and I get married, she starts planning more often.
"I just want to see my daughter," she says.
But it's not Jennifer she looks at when she arrives.
The first time she touches me is in the kitchen.
Jennifer is upstairs, changing after work. Helen is helping me unload groceries—or pretending to. When I reach past her for a cabinet, her body shifts. Her hip presses against mine. Her breasts brush my arm.
"Sorry," she says. But she doesn't move away.
"It's fine."
"Is it?" Her hand finds my lower back. "Jennifer always said you were... understanding."
"Understanding?"
"About her. About how she is." Her hand slides lower. "About how the women in our family are."
I step away. My heart is pounding.
"Helen, I don't—"
"Don't worry." She smiles. "We have time."
Jennifer comes downstairs. Helen is on the other side of the kitchen, innocent as air.
"Everything okay?" Jennifer asks.
"Perfect," Helen says. "Just getting to know my son-in-law."
The touches escalate.
Hugs that last too long. Kisses on the cheek that drift toward my mouth. Hands on my arm, my shoulder, my back. She's testing me, I realize. Seeing how far I'll let her go.
I should stop her.
I don't.
Three months after the kitchen incident, Helen arrives for a weekend visit.
Jennifer has a work emergency. She apologizes profusely, promises to be back by dinner, leaves me alone with her mother.
Helen wastes no time.
"Finally," she says when Jennifer's car disappears. "We can stop pretending."
"Pretending what?"
"That you don't want me." She moves closer. Two hundred and sixty pounds of confident flesh, wearing a dress that barely contains her. "That you haven't been thinking about this since the wedding."
"I'm married to your daughter."
"And I'm jealous of my daughter." She stops in front of me. Her breasts are at my eye level when I'm seated. "I've been jealous since she brought you home. Since I saw how you looked at her, and wished you'd look at me that way."
"Helen—"
"Just once." Her hand cups my face. "Give me just once, and I'll leave you alone forever. I promise."
She's lying. We both know it.
But I don't care.
She's softer than Jennifer.
Larger in every dimension—breasts that overflow my hands, a belly that presses warm against mine, an ass that takes both palms and then some. She moans louder than her daughter, comes faster, demands more.
"That's it—" She's riding me on the guest bed, her massive body bouncing. "God, Jennifer is lucky—why does she get everything—"
"Helen—"
"Shut up." She slams down. "Just fuck me. Make me feel like I'm her age again."
I make her feel. Four times before we hear Jennifer's car in the driveway.
I expect guilt.
Instead, I feel alive. More alive than I have in months. Helen awakens something I didn't know was sleeping—a hunger for more, for different, for bigger.
And somehow, impossibly, Jennifer notices.
"You seem happier," she says one night.
"Do I?"
"More... present. More interested." She snuggles closer. "Did something happen?"
Your mother fucked me on the guest bed while you were at work.
"Just appreciating what I have."
She smiles. Kisses me. Takes me inside her.
And I close my eyes and think of Helen.
Helen visits every week now.
She's bolder each time. A quick touch when Jennifer leaves the room. A whispered promise when Jennifer's in the shower. Once, impossibly, a handjob under the dinner table while Jennifer ate dessert three feet away.
I'm living two lives.
Husband to one woman.
Lover to her mother.
It can't last.
Jennifer catches us.
Not in the act—not quite. But she comes home early, and Helen is sitting too close to me on the couch, and my pants are unzipped, and there's only one conclusion to draw.
She doesn't scream.
She doesn't cry.
She stands in the doorway and says, very quietly:
"I always knew this would happen."
"Jennifer—" Helen starts.
"Don't." Jennifer holds up a hand. "Don't apologize. Don't explain. I know exactly what this is."
"What is it?" I manage.
Jennifer looks at me. At her mother. At both of us.
"Competition," she says. "The same competition we've been having since I was old enough to be compared to her. Who's prettier. Who's smarter. Who's more successful."
"I never meant—"
"You took my husband." Jennifer's voice is flat. "You took the one thing that was supposed to be mine. And you know what? I'm not even surprised. This is what you do."
"Jennifer, please—"
"So let's see who wins." Jennifer starts unbuttoning her blouse. "Right now. Right here. Let's see who he actually wants."
I should stop this.
I don't stop this.
Jennifer strips with businesslike efficiency. One-ninety of curves, softer than I remember, looking more like her mother every year. She stands beside Helen—still dressed, frozen in shock—and waits.
"Well?" she says. "Choose."
"I don't—"
"Choose. Or I choose for us all."
Helen stands. Slowly, she unzips her dress. Two-sixty of competitive flesh. Mother and daughter, side by side.
"You can't make him choose," Helen says.
"I'm not making him do anything." Jennifer's voice is ice. "I'm giving him permission. To be honest. Finally."
They both look at me.
And I realize—maybe for the first time—that I can't choose.
That I don't want to.
"Both," I say.
Jennifer's eyes widen.
Helen's narrow.
"What?" they say together.
"Both." I stand. Move toward them. "You want me to choose? I choose not to. I want both of you. Now. Together."
Jennifer looks at her mother. Helen looks at her daughter.
Something passes between them. Years of rivalry. Years of comparison.
And somehow, impossibly, an understanding.
"Together," Jennifer says slowly.
"If she can handle it," Helen replies.
They turn back to me.
And then they're on me—both at once, four hundred and fifty pounds of mother and daughter, competing even as they cooperate.
I fuck them side by side.
Jennifer first, then Helen. Helen first, then Jennifer. They watch each other, study each other, compete to make more noise, come harder, take me deeper.
"She's tighter," Helen gasps when I'm inside Jennifer.
"You're wetter," Jennifer admits when I'm inside Helen.
They start touching each other. Tentatively at first. Then boldly. Hands on breasts, on bellies, on clits. Mother making daughter come. Daughter returning the favor.
By the time I finish inside Helen—my choice, in the end—they're lying tangled together. Not rivals anymore.
Something else.
Six Months Later
Helen moved in.
Guest room, officially. But she spends most nights in our bed. The three of us, tangled together, taking turns, sharing.
The neighbors think she's helping with childcare. We don't have kids.
Jennifer doesn't mind. She likes having her mother close. Likes, I think, finally being equals.
And me?
I have a wife and a mother-in-law who compete for my attention every night.
Some competitions have no losers.
This is one of them.