Thinking back on it now, it all happened so slowly over a long period of time, probably three years, maybe longer.
My mother had me out of wedlock when she was 16 and in 1953 that was the kind of thing that made so called decent people turn away from you when they passed you on the street. Even though my mom had been raped by her high school principal, it didn’t matter. Sure he lost his job. in her small hometown was that my mom had been the guilty party, leading the poor man on until he had no choice but to take her virginity in the boiler room of the school basement after her final performance in the junior class play.
Six weeks later when my mother’s parents found out about her condition they shipped her off to live with her widowed aunt Rose in Topeka and that’s where I was born and where my story begins.
Everyone urged my mom to give me up. too young to raise a child by yourself” they’d tell her.
“Better for you and for the boy to let him go.”
“How will you ever find a man to marry you when you’re burdened with a child?” She heard it all and in truth she actually tried to give me up at one point only to change her mind at the last second. , the aunt we lived with gave up and accepted us and for the next 15 years we lived with her. Mom got a part time job as a waitress at the Rainbow Café to help pay expenses and I delivered the daily paper around the neighborhood to contribute to the cause. All in all it wasn’t a bad life growing up in a household with two women.
For all those years, my mom and I shared a bedroom in Aunt Rose’s small house. Of course we had twin beds, but still I got used to seeing my mom in her long nightgown at night and often in her plain white bra and white cotton panties as she got ready for work. I got used to bathing in a lion claw tub with her lingerie hanging all over the bathroom and the scent of her “Evening in Paris” perfume permeating our little room.
She dated some, but not often. It wasn’t because she was unattractive, in fact she was very pretty in a small town, country girl sort of way. Dishwater blonde hair that hung down to her shoulders, smoky gray eyes, 5 foot 4 with a slight build. No she was attractive enough, but as soon as the guy found out she had a son, he was out the door. So, I grew up feeling like I was the cause of her misery, the reason she never married.
By the time I was 19 I’d graduated from high school and had a good job as a carpenter. Mom’s lot had improved too and she was office manager at a local doctor’s office and together we had enough money to move into our own house, modest but more than adequate for our needs. Our relationship had changed too, still mother and son, but more like good friends.
Like many sons, I was attracted to my mom in a physical way, but was careful not to let her know I had those thoughts about her. I never wanted her to think badly of me and knew she would think I was perverted if she learned that sometimes in my room at night I masturbated, holding a pair of her recently worn panties to my nose, smelling her feminine aroma, pretending my mom was lying beneath me, our bodies coupled together.
During the years between my 16th and 19th birthday mom would occasionally date and even though she would tell me it wasn’t serious, I often found her sitting alone in her bedroom crying softly. I cared so much for her that I would sit beside her on her bed, asking her what was wrong, putting my arm around her to comfort her. She would always tell me it was nothing, but it really hurt me to see how sad she was so I would press the issue till she admitted that her current boyfriend was only after one thing and she just wasn’t ready to commit to that level knowing how devastated she had been because of the one and only time she had been with a man that way.
We would talk and hug and that would be that, until one night a few months after I’d turned 19 when she came in from her date later than normal and she was upset. I followed her into her room where she lay face down on her bed and wept. I tried to comfort her, lying beside her, rubbing her back. “What’s wrong with me?” she asked.
“Nothing” I told her. “There is nothing wrong with you. You are so near perfect it’s scary.”
“Then why can’t I just give a man what he wants? Why can’t I just give in and make him happy?”
“Maybe it’s because you don’t love him?” I said.
She turned on her side and looked at me, “What’s love got to do with sex? If I’d just let him have what he wants then maybe he’d marry me and we could have a real family?”
“You have a family mom, you have me.” I told her.
“It’s not the same, you’re my son. I know you love me and I love you, but we can’t give each other the things a man and wife can. We can’t share a bed and be intimate with each other that way.”
And then I said it and regretted it the second it was out of my mouth. “We could be… you know, intimate that way.”
“Oh my god Ryan do you realize what you just said?” The look on her face filled me with grief.
“It’s not impossible, I know it happens” I said quietly.
“Not here, not with us, I ‘m your mother and you’re my son. Don’t ever say that again.”
“I’m sorry mom, really sorry, but it does happen. History is full of mothers and sons doing it, even getting married.”
“We are not history Ryan. We are a 35 year old mother and her 19 year old son living in Topeka Kansas, trying to survive in the crazy world we live in.”
“It is crazy mom and in this craziness, I’m in love with you. I have been for a long time.”
“I know you are. The way a son loves his mother” she said.
“And more” I told her, “the way a man loves a woman.”
” Stop it Ryan, Stop it right now. I don’t want to hear any more. Go to your room.” She yelled at me.
I looked down at her for a few seconds, realizing I’d made a big mistake. I shrugged my shoulders and told her “I’m sorry mom. I thought we could talk about anything. Guess I was wrong.”
“Not anything, Ryan. Some things are way out of bounds, way, way, way out of bounds.” I left her room, closing her door behind me.
For several days we stayed out of each other’s way. Saturday night came and I went to the movies by myself and when I got home around ten I walked past her room, her door was open and a lamp was lit beside her bed. I glanced in as I walked by and saw she was propped up against her head board reading a magazine. “Ryan, can I see you for a moment.” She said and I turned and stopped at her door, realizing it was time to face the music.
“You can come in” she said and I took several steps towards her bed, dreading what was coming. “She patted the bed beside her, “sit down for a minute, I think we should talk” she said looking serious and I did as she asked, making sure to keep my shoes off the covers. “About the other night” she started.
“I told you I was sorry.” I interrupted.
“I know you did and I believe you were, but I have a question for you, did you mean what you said?”
“Said about what?”
“You told me you loved me like a man loves a woman and you implied, well really more than implied, that you wanted to have sex with me. Did you mean that?”
“What if I did?” I asked.
“Well for one thing that would be incest, mothers and sons are not supposed to have sex together.” She said quietly “And for another thing it would change our relationship forever.”
“So?”
“Ryan look at me” and I did. “If we did what you want to do, have sex together, our lives would never be the same. I’m hardly an expert on the subject, but I’m pretty sure that sex changes things Ryan, especially sex between a mother and her son.” She looked at me then turned her head away, staring in front of her, suddenly looking very shy. Even her voice got soft as if she was hesitant to say what she felt needed to be said. “When a woman allows a man to take her, be inside her body, that way, she gives up all her defenses. She not only allows his body to become a part of hers, but she allows his sperm to enter her womb and possibly create another life.”
“I know that” I told her.
“But a mother and son can’t take that chance Ryan. If you made love to me right now, you could very well make me pregnant.”
“Maybe, maybe not, but if we only did it once you probably wouldn’t get pregnant.”
She shook her head, still not looking at me, “That’s not true Ryan, you are living proof that once is all it takes if that once happens at the wrong time of the month and one of your sperm finds one of my eggs inside my womb, our world would collapse.”
“I could wear a rubber.”
Now she looked at me, her face was flushed “Wow , that would be romantic wouldn’t it?”
“It would work.”
“Do you have a rubber handy Ryan?”
“No, but I can run and get one fast enough.”
Again she shook her head “They don’t always work anyway, and besides,” she paused, then looked at me, “do you really think we would only do it once, just once and then never again. We’d just have sex one time, go on with our lives as if nothing had happened and never be tempted to do it again?”
“We could try” I said, not convincing either one of us.
Another shake of her beautiful head, “I don’ t think sex works that way Ryan, at least not when two people love each other. Once we did it with all the feelings and powerful sensations and emotions of having our two bodies joined so completely in that.. very… intimate.. way I don’t believe we could just stop and never do it again.”
“It sounds to me like you’ve thought about it mom.” I said, realizing I’d crossed the line.