Tammy left the bathroom and bypassed Ben’s room. She decided that she would speak to him a little later on the subject. She would have to. There was no further question about that. First she needed a distraction to help her to calm down. Dinner made sense. Everybody liked dinner. Dinner didn’t question anybody’s motives. Dinner didn’t need to know!
Tammy decided on a sausage casserole with mashed potatoes and got to work like a woman possessed when Ben appeared beside her some time later, notably quiet and moving with caution. She was dicing onions when she sensed him and greeted him with a brave smile. That seemed to have caught him by surprise; maybe because he was expecting hell to pay.
‘Hey Ben, how was work?’ Tammy asked by habit, looking up a few inches to meet his nervous eyes. ‘You look a little strung…’
Ben forced a smile and swooped in to kiss her on the cheek, which also surprised her, as did the way his hand brushed casually along her elbow. What was that, she wondered. It left her tingling. ‘I am a little. They’re definitely trying to get their money’s worth this week. New boss sucks ass!’
‘Most bosses do,’ Tammy said outright. ‘Male or female?’
‘It’s a woman. Her name’s Carol. Something tells me she doesn’t care for men so much. We think she might be a closet feminist…’
‘Oh well then you’re screwed, son,’ Tammy replied, fighting back the sting in her eyes as she carved up the last of the onions and threw them in the skillet. ‘If she doesn’t like men AND she’s a feminist then she could be a misandrist.’
‘What the hell is one of those?’ Ben asked, filling the kettle under the tap.
‘A man-hater, honey; they use the likes of feminism to hold high their personal grudges.’
‘Fuck that,’ he reacted, settling the kettle down and flipping the switch. Instinctively Tammy would normally have warned Ben about that kind of language, but she didn’t. To avoid the reality and the gravity of her hidden dilemma, she buried herself into the conversation.
‘No you really don’t want to do that,’ she joked but she wasn’t really joking. ‘In fact that’s usually the reason they’re so angry with men – aside from the fact that they’re so hard to look at and so bitter that no man in the right mind would.’
‘Mom,’ Ben said and began to laugh under his breath. What had gotten into her? ‘It’s almost like you know her. Take a wild guess what she looks like…’
‘Obese, granny glasses, bad hair, mouth like an asshole with lipstick on it…’
‘Wow, I guess you do know her,’ Ben said in his utter surprise. Still she wouldn’t look at him. He could sense that something was amiss and he was worried that he knew why. If his suspicions were true and he found out for sure, he would die of shame.
‘Dinner in an hour if that’s okay?’ Tammy asked, watching the sausages brown.
5
“Quick question,” Tammy typed into a reply later that evening. “You already know about the coincidence that you and I share the names of your mother and my son. Have you considered the strange possibility that maybe I’m sending this message to my son while he’s sitting across the room from me, watching the television?”
Tammy put her phone in her lap and turned back to the TV, but her sights were focused indirectly on Ben, who was in fact lazing on the couch. She could see him by her periphery, enough to look like she wasn’t paying attention as the message tone of his own phone sounded. He wasted no time in answering. Craftily, Tammy had turned off the message tone to her email so that he wouldn’t catch on to what was happening.
Two minutes later:
“Omg that would be strange wouldn’t it? Okay then if you’re my mom then what’s on television and what am I wearing?”
“Okay you got me,” Tammy typed. “You’re sitting at your computer typing my next favourite mommy fantasy.”
“Ha! I knew it! Tease!” Ben gave his mother a cursory glance and again returned to his show.
“You’re watching Game of Thrones in your white basketball shorts,” Tammy replied, noting Ben’s white basketball shorts. As soon as she hit send, she regretted it. What was even going through her mind anymore but the fact that she knew what he didn’t? What was she playing at?
She left the room as calmly and as normally as she could, but as the ringtone on Ben’s phone sounded again and he looked up to her, wondering where she was going, Tammy smiled and offered him a wink.
“OMG NO!!”
As she locked herself into her bedroom and settled back into her seat, the one in which she had masturbated vigorously only twenty four hours previously to her own son’s incest fantasy, Tammy took a deep breath and awaited the tidal wave of anxiety that was set to sweep right over her. Her arms and legs were shaking. Her stomach was flipping madly with nerves. She had to do something to take control of the situation, for both their sakes.
On the one hand she couldn’t wrap her head around what it meant and what it could lead to, that both she and her son shared the same deliciously depraved fantasy – a fantasy that involved the both of them – and yet had maintained it as a best kept secret for good reason.
What would become if she left it where it was, with Ben no doubt left in shock and embarrassment, knowing that his own mother had exposed his secret? But then there was the matter of the emails between them before Tammy realised just who her fantasy writer really was.
Maybe, she thought…
Maybe I need to be honest with him, but more importantly to be honest with myself in front of him, so that he can rest assured that he’s not alone; that it’s not so big a deal. With that, she returned to her email account. A new message was already awaiting her.
“Mom, please just forget it happened. I am so sorry. If this is really you and it wasn’t a lucky guess, I cannot be sorry enough!”
“Yes it’s me,” Tammy typed nervously. “I’m just as shocked as you are. But we have to talk about this. I’m going to stay in my room for a while and give you your space. But I want to speak to you so let me know I can and I’ll call you instead…”
6
‘Hey son,’ Tammy began cautiously and took a deep breath when she couldn’t think where to begin.
‘Mom,’ Ben moaned miserably, ‘I am so sorry, please don’t think I’m a freak.’
‘Well, we’re in a weird situation here, Ben, so let’s say we admit we’re both freaks and go from there,’ Tammy offered warily. ‘Just listen to me a moment, relax and let me talk for both of us. Can you do that?’
‘Yes mom,’ he sulked. ‘I am soooo…’
‘Sorry, yeah, that’s gonna get worn out by the time we’re done!’
‘I’m just gonna turn off the TV and go to my room as well, then,’ Ben said and did so, talking as he went. ‘So go on then, what do I say?’
‘You listen like I told you,’ Tammy said patiently and listened out for him as he passed her bedroom door. ‘First of all, if you recall, there’s the matter of me having read your story on the website and then emailed you my gratitude, never imagining that my own son would have replied in person. Do you remember what we talked about in your emails briefly?’
‘Forgive my mind for being kinda blank right now, mom,’ Ben said excitedly. ‘We exchanged the typical kind of compliments associated with the subject,’ he recalled careful of his choice of words.
‘I read those kinds of stories. You write them. We’re kinda kinky that way, it would seem,’ Tammy explained frankly and then offered a little laugh. ‘Please don’t be ashamed or embarrassed or at least think that you’re alone in this. You’re not in trouble. And I stand by what I said. Your writing is pretty good.’
‘You’re not mad?’ Ben asked bewilderedly before stifling an anguished wail. He was cringing so hard lying on his bed that very moment, his mind reeling, the urge to take flight now maddening. He just wanted to bolt and to run as fast as he could.
‘I’m honestly too weirded out to be mad,’ his mother admitted after some time, ‘but I’m more likely to be mad with myself for putting us in this position. Obviously being that I enjoy the stories a lot… I would never have taken issue with you writing them… but…’
‘But…’
BUT???
THE FATE OF THE WORLD WAS NOW HINGING ON WHAT CAME AFTER “BUT”!
‘I never should have put us in this position, especially when I already knew it was you.’
‘You already knew?’ It dawned on him then. She did, and she had tricked him, too. ‘I suppose I deserved that,’ he concluded sullenly.
‘No, it was pretty cruel of me. I am sorry. Do you accept my apology? I didn’t know what to do!’
‘I’ll think about it…’
‘I deserve less,’ she muttered.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Ben mumbled.
‘I love you. You’re a good son to me and I’d be lost and lonely without you,’ Tammy admitted, feeling the familiar emotional sting burning behind her eyes.
‘Me too, mom…’
‘Yeah,’ Tammy reacted and waited. It seemed like Ben was hesitating.
‘I do love you, mom. I couldn’t care less about anything else. But I’m still embarrassed as hell right now. I think I’ll stay in my room too.’