The Reluctant Mother Ch. 01

The bedside lamp wasn't very powerful but I could see that mum was blushing a deep pink. She was silent for long moments then:

'I'm sorry, Michael. I had no idea you'd come back. I... I'd read something in my book and I... Well, it made me feel a bit, you know, warm.'

'The thing is, Mum, that I couldn't get it out of my head. I thought about you all the time. Thought about you as a sexual person as a woman instead of just my mum. I've never done that before,' I added. 'I know it was wrong,' I went on, 'but with the wine and the day out and everything I just couldn't help myself. You just looked so desirable.'

Mum gave me a half smile and I relaxed a bit. There wasn't going to be a cataclysmic row and family rift. That wasn't my mother's way, but still it was nice to have it confirmed.

'I don't know whether to be flattered or horrified or both,' she paused, mustering her thoughts. 'I mean literature is littered with young men with a mother fixation, so it's not as if the idea's new to me. But when it manifests itself in your own son, that's quite a shock.' She paused again and I waited, holding my breath, unable to guess what she would say next.

'Also I suppose I'd have expected an Oedipus complex to have reared its ugly head when I was a bit younger, not nearly sixty-one!'

'I never saw you masturbating before,' I said, chancing my arm a bit.

'Quite,' she replied. 'And obviously you won't be telling anyone else, will you?'

'Of course not!'

Mum sighed. 'And obviously there can never be anything of that nature between us. You do understand that, don't you, Michael?'

'Yes,' I sighed and she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek and I had to restrain the urge to turn my head and kiss her lips again. This little discussion had aroused me to new heights, we had got the taboo of incest almost into the light of day, and certainly within the realms of a future discussion. My cock was ragingly hard under the duvet.

'Goodnight, Michael,'

'Goodnight, Mum.'

Breakfast that Sunday wasn't as awkward as I'd feared. Mum made an effort to make me feel comfortable and neither of us discussed the night before. The plan was going more or less according to plan. The next step was a fortnight away.

That step actually took place on the weekend of my mother's sixty-first birthday. I told her to keep the Sunday free and she got all excited with the anticipation. I was excited too, for different and darker reasons.

The fine weather continued as June turned into July, so I took mum out into the hills again on that Sunday morning and we walked a different route, but with a stop at the same pub for lunch. Mum was wearing shorts this time and I was able to surreptitiously admire her legs; they weren't the most slender I'd ever seen but they were shapely and clean-muscled and tanned a honey colour.

We got home about three o'clock and mum opened the few presents that she'd received; I'd bought her a huge bouquet of flowers and a cutting-edge coffee maker. Then I sprang the news to her that there was a restaurant table in town booked for six-thirty and after that we would be seeing a show at the Theatre Royale.

Mum was incandescent with excitement; she never ate out and very rarely went to the theatre. When I told her it was Guys 'n' Dolls she squealed with pleasure and hugged me tightly, squeezing her breasts against my chest; Guys 'n' Dolls is her all-time favourite. She disappeared upstairs and I heard the sound of a bath running.

The restaurant cost a fortune but it was good. Good food, good service and good atmosphere. And my mother looked good too. She was wearing a snugly fitting black cocktail dress with a single strand of pearls.

'I think I'm a bit big for this dress,' she'd confided to me as we waited for the taxi.

'Nonsense, it shows off your figure,' I told her, and it was true. Her waist had thickened a bit over the years but she still had an hourglass shape and her full breasts and wide hips were the epitome of a mature woman, although I refrained from mentioning that.

'Thank you,' she replied, giving me a slightly quizzical smile.

She'd washed her hair, too and it was shining in the subtle light of the candle on the table between us. Her makeup was carefully applied and she'd gone the extra mile and used face powder and eyeshadow and mascara and a dark crimson lipstick which made her lips look even fuller and juicier. I'd also noticed that she was wearing black pantyhose and court shoes, so all in all I was a bit overwhelmed by my mother's appearance. I hadn't expected her to look quite this good!

And she was in rare form; chatting easily with the waiters, cracking jokes, looking at me over the rim of her glass as she sipped her Chianti. I wondered what she was thinking. She'd also, I noticed with some surprise, painted her fingernails with a clear varnish, something I can't remember her doing before. Was she doing all this for me? Was she telling me in her subtle way that maybe things could progress between us? I doubted it very much but it was a pleasant fantasy and I enjoyed eating and talking and looking at her across the table.

The show was good too. I'm not much of a one for musicals but the cast belted it out very professionally and mum was enthralled, which was the point of the exercise. At the interval I steered her gently through the throng to the bar with one hand on the small of her back and we drank cocktails and she chatted animatedly about the show and it was all I could manage not to pull her to me and kiss her. My mother was gorgeous!

We got back to the house at ten thirty and I suggested a nightcap which mum agreed to readily, so I poured her a stiff Remy Martin, her favourite spirit; I had a Scotch.

We sat and sipped our drinks on opposite sides of the sitting room. Mum on the settee, as always, and me on the easy chair. We talked about the meal and the show and the clock moved round to eleven o'clock and at length I put down my empty glass and stood up.

'I'm about ready for bed,' I announced.

'Me too,' smiled mum, getting up. She stood in front of me. 'Thank you for giving me such a special day, Michael. It's been... splendid,' she finished. 'You've made an old lady very happy.' She took a pace towards me and kissed my cheek and I felt my desire reach screaming pitch and I put my hands on her hips and drew her slightly closer.

She gave me that quizzical smile again. 'You're not going to spoil it now, are you?'

'Ok,' I said, and I was glad I'd had the whisky because I felt slightly numb and able to go through with my speech. 'For the last two weeks I've suppressed my feelings about you, and it's been very hard.' I paused and mum looked at me with her head cocked slightly to one side, in a questioning pose. 'Then tonight I just thought you looked so utterly ravishing that it almost took my breath away.' I was laying it on pretty thick now, but it was from-the-heart stuff.

'I completely get all the stuff you said to me in my bedroom, but I just thought maybe tonight I could steal a kiss from you, just to stop me going totally mad. Surely a kiss can't do any harm?'

'It's what it might lead to that concerns me,' my mother said. She looked at me carefully, considering. 'Just a kiss?'

'Just a kiss,' I promised.

And so, unbelievably, we kissed.

My mother put her hands on my shoulders and I pulled her gently against me with my hands still on her waist and I tilted my head and she tilted hers the other way and our heads came slowly together and I was aware of her hair framing her face and her scent and then, tentatively, our lips met and brushed against each other and slowly, slowly I increased the pressure and mum didn't pull away, but neither did she respond. I kissed her more firmly and opened my mouth. This was the break point; did a kiss mean french kissing, with the intimacy of open mouths and tongues.

With my heart thumping in my chest and my head whirling I felt her mouth open slightly against mine and I touched her lips with my tongue and she stayed passively against me so I pressed harder with my lips and opened my mouth wider and slid my tongue into my mother's mouth and she accepted it and we kissed for long seconds, me working my mouth against hers, she making faint but discernible responses with her lips.

It was me who broke that first kiss; I didn't want it to be mum. Her eyes were closed, showing blue-shadowed lids, but she opened them and looked at me.

'Is that what you wanted?' she asked, calmly.

'Yes,' I whispered. Then I leaned forward and kissed her lips and bade her goodnight.

Naked in my bed, I masturbated violently, then a second time more calmly, remembering the touch of my mother's lips, the taste and smell of her, the feeling of my tongue in her mouth, touching her tongue at one point. I don't know how many times I tossed myself off that night; I kept waking and wanking and sleeping and waking again until the sun rose and it was time to get up and go to work.

I didn't see my mother at breakfast, but she was home when I got back after work and I walked into the kitchen where she was preparing vegetables for dinner.

'How was your day?' I asked.

'Alright,' she replied, neutrally. 'How was yours?'

There was an awkwardness between us that was entirely new. A barrier that must be dismantled.

'Fine,' I said. 'Is something the matter? Do we need to talk?'

'Well what do you think, Michael? We kissed last night, like lovers do. So yes, I think we do need to talk.' She was facing me across the kitchen island, hands on the wooden surface, palms down.

'It was just a kiss,' I began.

'So what's next? Do you want to squeeze my breasts? Fondle my bum? And what about after that?' Mum's voice had risen. She never shouted but this was loud for her. I tried not to look shocked that she'd outlined pretty accurately the next two steps of my master plan.

Suddenly I knew what I needed to do. I walked around the island unit, took her in my arms and kissed her hard and passionately. For about ten glorious seconds she responded like a lover, opening her mouth, sliding her tongue over my lips, gripping my shoulders with her hands, digging her nails into my back. Then she stopped and broke off. Her hair was a bit wild and I'd smudged her lipstick. She tried to push me away but I held her tight.

'Just a kiss,' I said, 'That's all. There's nothing wrong with us kissing.'

She relaxed and gave me a weary look. 'I don't think you understand, Michael. You're not the only one with feelings.' I released her and she picked up the potato peeler and selected a carrot from the counter. I was lost for words, so I walked, trance-like into the sitting room and tried to read that day's paper, but it was hopeless so I chucked it on the floor and sat staring out of the french windows, trying to process what my mother had said.

Did she mean that kissing was dangerous because it aroused her as well as me? I went back into the kitchen.

'I'm sorry,' I said. 'I think I've been rather selfish.'

Mum put down the carrot and came round to stand in front of me.

'Oh, Michael,' she sighed. 'What is happening here?'

'It's my fault,' I told her. 'I've become obsessed with you. As an image of mature sexual perfection rather than as a mother. I'd be happy just to kiss you,' I added. 'I wouldn't try to take things any further. If you didn't want to,' I added, pushing my luck again.

'But it's wrong, darling. We shouldn't ever be kissing like this. I'm your mother.'

'It's just a kiss mum. Nobody gets hurt. Nobody else has to know.'

My mother stood there in the kitchen, thinking over what I'd said, her face unreadable. My stomach was in knots; we appeared to be reaching a watershed. At last she sat down on one of the kitchen stools and looked up at me.

'You saw me masturbating a few weeks ago.' It felt funny to hear her use the word. 'And I gather that's what started all this.' It wasn't a question. 'It may surprise you to know that I masturbate quite a lot. Not in the garden, but in bed. Most nights in fact.' My stomach did a double flip and my jaw dropped.

'Oh come on, you can't be that surprised,' she said. 'I'm sure you do the same.' She clasped her hands on the table. 'The thing is, it's all very well saying "it's just a kiss", but I have feelings too. If it was just me fending you off that might be ok, but when you kissed me just now and I kissed you back, that was dangerous ground!'

'But if we get a bit steamed up with the kissing then we both have the safety valve of masturbation,' I argued, aware that it was a pretty fatuous point.

'Oh, that's ok then! That's put my mind at rest. I can't believe we're having this conversation.'

'Promise me you'll think about it?' I begged.

'I'll certainly be thinking about it,' she replied, and that was the last time kissing was mentioned that evening, although in fairness, nothing much else was mentioned.

I lay awake again that night, full of self-doubt. Trying to seduce my mother had seemed like a wild and exciting idea but now, with the plan developing in directions I hadn't anticipated, I was concerned. Worried that I was going to estrange my mother, one of the few relatives I'd got, and someone whom I loved very much. Was all this worth it? Surely I could go out and find a sixty-year-old women if that's what I wanted.

But she wouldn't be my mother, and it was with my mother, Gillian, that I was inextricably fixated. I told myself that I was never going to sleep with her but a tiny voice inside said: "You never know".

Even so, I was surprised by mum's proposition the following evening.

We'd eaten earlier than usual and were watching a dull film on the television when mum suddenly picked up the remote control and switched the set off. 'That's quite enough of that rubbish,' she said. 'And besides, I have something to say to you.'

I suddenly became short of breath and my stomach appeared to jump into my throat.

'I've been thinking a lot today about us. About this kissing business. About what you said about a safety valve.' I waited, tense. 'If I said we could have the occasional kiss, a proper kiss I mean, would you promise to not try and take it any further.'

'Of course,' I said, sitting up. 'Absolutely.'

'Ok,' said my mother, slowly, 'let's see how that works out.'

I was on the settee next to her in a flash.

'I did say occasional,' she smiled, but she didn't resist as I put my arm around her shoulders and drew her to me. And that was really the first proper kiss between us.

We worked our lips together like seasoned lovers, each of us eager and willing. My mother tasted delicious, her saliva on my tongue as I explored her teeth and gums. She mashed her mouth against mine, sucking in my lower lip and nibbling it gently. I was in heaven! I had never imagined my mother might kiss like this! It reminded me of Valerie at her most wanton and I had a sudden memory of mum sucking her juices off her fingers and I grew very hot and very aroused.

We kissed for a long time that evening and when, eventually, I said goodnight to my mother and went upstairs, my mouth was tender, and I could taste mum on my tongue. For the hour or so that we had kissed, I had had a glass-hard and uncomfortable erection and it was a relief to strip off and release it. The glans was purple and swollen and coated with sticky seminal fluid. I barely had to stroke myself before I ejaculated into the little hand-basin in my en-suite bathroom.

Again, my second wank was slower and laced with fantasy images of my mother, mostly naked, but also wearing sexy lingerie. I imagined her straddling me, riding my cock; kneeling before me, sucking me off and, most erotic of all, tied to the bed while I fucked her. My thoughts were also laced with reality; I had kissed my sixty-one-year-old mother properly. I would kiss her again, as often as I could. I thought about the promise I had made not to try to take things further. Well, I told myself, if it never progressed beyond kissing, I would still die a happy man.

My master plan had assumed that kissing would be normalised by custom and then I would tentatively proceed down more forbidden avenues; fondling her breasts, as she had mentioned, for example. But I'd promised not to do that and if I broke that promise, wasn't it possible that kissing privileges would be withdrawn?

Which made life difficult, because after that first evening, we kissed pretty much every evening, and often in the morning before we left for work. As a consequence of this, I spent a considerable amount of the day (and night) in a state of intense sexual excitement. So it was entirely natural that I should want to go further with my mother. As far as it was possible to go, in fact.

But for more than six weeks I kept my promise, well into August when the weather turned and late summer rain lashed the windows of the house and cricket was off so all I had to do at weekends was to kiss my mother and masturbate incessantly. I assumed my mother was doing the same. Eventually, one Saturday afternoon, I asked her.

We'd done household chores in the morning, it was still foul outdoors. After a lunch of salad and cold meat we settled down to watch an old David Niven film in black and white - A Matter of Life and Death, one of mum's favourites. We watched cuddled up on the settee, my arm around mum, her head on my chest. As the final credits rolled she turned her face up to mine and we kissed slowly and gently, and as we kissed I stroked her hair and her back and her arm and, once, brushed my hand across her bosom.

'What will you do when we finish kissing?' I teased her, 'go upstairs and masturbate?'

'That's not the sort of question to ask a lady.'

'Are you still masturbating a lot,' I pressed.

'Yes,' she replied, softly. 'A lot.'

Her words made my stomach churn with desire and possibility.

'I could do it for you, one day,' I whispered in her ear.

'You made a promise,' she reminded me. 'Kissing only.'

'I do want you, you know,' I told her, feeling that all the barriers to frankness were down.

'I know,' she replied, quietly, and a bit sadly.

After the first week of August, a high-pressure ridge moved in over the Atlantic and drove the rain away. The days were clear skyed and hot again and the nights warm and sultry. Sleep was difficult, even without any covering on the bed. The windows were wide open but no breeze disturbed the soupy air.

One night, it was a Friday I seem to recall, I lay bathed in sweat for a couple of hours before getting up, putting a lightweight dressing gown on and going downstairs, where it was a few degrees cooler. It was just after 3am, so I was surprised to see that there was a light on in the sitting room. My mother, in a full-length dressing gown of some silvery material, was sitting on the settee reading a detective novel. Away from the University, mum's literary tastes were decidedly more basic. She looked up as I came through the doorway.

'Couldn't sleep either?' she asked, smiling up at me.

'Not a chance in this heat.' I sat down next to her and drew her towards me for a kiss.

'Don't you ever stop,' she said, although she allowed herself to be kissed and even put her book down on the settee so that she could put her arms around me and return the kiss. Her mouth tasted a bit stale but then I imagine mine did too.

But this time there was something different. Something very, very exciting. My sixty-one-year-old mother was naked underneath her robe. I could feel the softness of her breasts against my chest through the material. And, most erotic of all, I could smell a musty scent on her, a scent that I was used to smelling on a woman's pussy. The scent of her juices. I had a sudden vision of mum writhing sweat soaked on the bed in the darkened bedroom, two fingers deep inside herself.