She was the most beautiful woman Justin had ever known. Even more than all his teachers, more than his friends, more than the pretty girls in the pageants. She smiled when he told her so, smiled and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Justin loved to make his mother happy. Justin lived to make his mother happy.
When he was fifteen, Justin's mother caught him playing footsies with Ellen Green underneath the picnic table after they'd gone for a swim. He'd already done much, much more with her in private -- his first real kiss, his first grope, his first blowjob, all the things that they guys tried to keep him away from when they could -- but the footsies was the first thing his mother caught him doing.
"She's no good for you," she said sharply, but only after Justin had walked Ellen home and come back again. "She's no good for you, Justin, and you know that. What were you thinking?" Justin had been thinking that blowjobs felt pretty good, but one look at his mother's flashing eyes, one hint of the betrayal and hurt she was obviously feeling, and the memory wasn't so good anymore. "Now tell me you won't do it again."
"I won't do it again, Mama."
"Good," she said, and kissed his cheek. "Now we just need to do something so you remember that."
The itch of the tattoo on his ankle almost drove him mad, and when it stopped itching it left a dull ache, and Justin wasn't even sure he liked the design of it so much, but his mother had picked it out so he would learn to like it. And he certainly wouldn't forget, not ever, that Mama came first. That his Mama was the best thing for him.
It was easy though, when she wasn't around, to look at girls, to fool around and have fun and convince himself that Mama wouldn't mind, just this once. Just this five hundredth time. What she didn't know couldn't hurt her. It was easy to forget what effect those eyes had on him when he wasn't seeing them ever day, or even every week. There were all kinds of beautiful women in the world, and even if they weren't as beautiful as his mother, they would do when she was gone.
Justin still came home for every holiday, and slept in his same old bed and curled up on the same old furniture with his mother every evening and watched the same old television. And jerked off in the same old bathroom. That was something he'd always been quiet about, secretive about, just him and his own body and it was selfish, so selfish, but it felt so damn good. She'd never caught him before, he'd been very good.
"Justin, I need you--" she said though, and she pushed open the unlocked, unlatched door, and there he was, caught red-faced and red-handed. "Oh!" She didn't even turn around as he scrambled to pull his jeans back up, to tuck himself into them, hard and aching. It hadn't even occurred him to ask her to.
"Justin," she said, taking his arm tightly in her fist. Her nails were painted a beautiful red. "Justin, how could you? You don't need to be doing that. Don't you already have everything you need, baby? Doesn't Mama give you everything you need?" Justin nodded. "Good boy," she said and kissed his cheek and patted his thigh, real high up. "Now come on, we need to make a little trip so you remember not to do this again, even when Mama's not there to remind you. I know you're all grown up now, but sometimes you still need reminding."
The tattoo on his ankle has been small; the tattoo on his arm was not. Huge and dark and deep and visible to everyone. Even if they didn't know what it meant, he did. He always would. It didn't keep him from jerking off when she wasn't around, but he did start using his other hand. And it made sure he thought about her when he did.
It turned out that girls weren't enough, weren't all that Justin wanted and needed to make him whole. Men did things for him that a girl -- no matter what girl -- could never do. He loved to get fucked, loved to lay on his stomach on his bed and let someone fuck him hard and deep and make him feel things he'd never felt before. Make him feel things deep inside, make him crumble and let go.
His mother didn't ever see, but she knew, oh, she knew. She had her ways. Justin wasn't as discreet as he could have been and someone had talked. Someone had given him up.
"How could you?" she asked, and she hid her face in her hands and she was almost in tears, Justin could tell, even though he never saw. "After everything I've done for you."
"It will never happen again, Mama," he promised her, and when she was right there he meant it.
"That's right, it won't," she said, and Justin already knew what was coming next. "Oh, sweet thing. I think we need another reminder. But not for you this time, no, you can't be trusted to remember on your own. This one is for everyone else, so they'll know who you really belong to when you're offering yourself to them."
The tattoo on his back was large and gaudy and painful, and it did exactly what it was meant to do. He needed help, to be faithful.
Justin's mother held his hand as it was etched into his skin.