“Mom! Hey, Mom!” he called out, heading into the kitchen to see what he could find to eat for a quick lunch since he was missing pizza day at school.

When his mom didn’t answer, he put two Hot Pockets into the microwave and went looking for her. In the hall, he heard music coming from his parents’ bedroom. When Steven opened the bedroom door, his mother was lying on her back in bed while being attended to by some naked guy with an enormous winged dragon back tattoo. Steven’s first thought was he must be experiencing his first acid flashback, because there was no way what he was seeing was real.

Luckily his mom and Mr. Back Tattoo were so caught up in the throes of passion that neither of them noticed his presence in the doorway. Seconds later Steven was back in the hall with his forehead pressed against the wall and his mouth still hanging open. He just stood there listening to The Isley Brothers’ “Between the Sheets” playing loudly through the door. Steven instantly recognized it as the melody that The Notorious B.I.G. had sampled for “Big Poppa,” one of Steven’s all-time favorite rap songs, making the whole thing ten times worse. Dumbstruck was the only word that could properly describe Steven’s state of mind. Actually, flabbergasted and gobsmacked would also have worked. His bewilderment quickly turned to nausea, and he barely made it into the foyer bathroom before he threw up the chocolate Muscle Milk he had just downed minutes before.

Steven, shaky and sweating, paced around the foyer trying to decide what to do. Eventually he landed on a plan of action, which was to flee the scene of the crime he had just witnessed. He left his mom a Post-it Note on the front hall table along with her Valentine’s gift from her husband and took off.

Steven asked the doorman to hail him a cab as he felt unable to work his phone and order an Uber. Soon he was in the backseat heading toward the hotel. What struck Steven the hardest was his inability to process how he was feeling, besides being in dire need of mouthwash. Steven reminded himself that his dad regularly cheated on his mother, so it shouldn’t be surprising to find out his mother was doing the same, but it was. It just seemed so wrong and disgusting to him, mainly because this was his mother. He couldn’t really think of her as a woman, let alone a sexual being.