We Need to Stop This

The summer that Bill left us was hard on my son Jake and me. Jake was getting ready to head back to college, and having his dad move out had clearly upset him in ways he found hard to express.

As for me, amidst all the other crap, I had to put the house on the market. There was just no way I could keep up with the mortgage on one salary, and besides, the place was too big, especially now that Jake was grown.

At any rate, as the summer wound down, the two of us spent as much time out back by the pool as possible, knowing that we were going to have to say goodbye to it sooner or later.

And that is how it started.

One afternoon, I had dozed off out there, stretched out on a towel in my bathing suit. I started to come back awake, but I just lay there, sleepily soaking in the sun. Half asleep, I was vaguely aware that Jake was there with me, but he was being strangely quiet. So I just slightly opened an eye to see what he was up to.

If he had known I had seen him, then, the two of us would have been hugely embarrassed. He was sitting across from me, openly staring at my body.

And to make matters more complicated, his hand was down inside the front of his swimsuit, and it was moving, ever so slowly, up and down.

Oh my God, I had caught my son masturbating! More embarrassing yet, he was doing it while looking at me.

The shameful part of it is that, somewhere behind the feeling of awkwardness, there grew something else. I remembered it warmly from a long time ago. It was the feeling of being desired by a man. Looking back on it, that is undoubtedly why I stayed still, then, and let Jake continue.

And why I did the other things that were to follow.

Jake gave out one hard breath with a shudder. Eventually, he took his eyes from me, and his hand from his shorts. I was pretty sure he had just made a sticky mess in the swim suit. In fact, I could just make out moisture on his thumb and his finger, and before he could reach for his towel, I finally stretched and let him know I was awake.

I thought briefly about tormenting him. It would have been so easy.

"Jake, honey, I need to roll over now. Would you be a dear and get some lotion on my back?"

He would probably carry his towel in front of himself as he moved over to me, hiding the front of his shorts from my view. He would sit just on the edge of my lounge chair and tentatively put a few drops of lotion on my shoulders.

"Oh come on," I would say, "you can do better than that. Don't be afraid, Jake, it's just skin, like on everyone else."

I could even reach back and untie the top of the suit, as I had already done many times even with him around. This time I could say, "There, now you can get my whole back without feeling like you're reaching underneath it. OK?"

Instead, to give him a chance to escape and clean up, I just yawned sleepily and went ahead and rolled onto my stomach. And I waited for him to walk past me (and yes, he was holding his towel awkwardly in front of himself) before I untied my top.

That same night, as sleep escaped me, I sat on the couch downstairs watching late-night TV. Eventually, I switched off the set, and the long-forgotten feelings of desire and desirability that had been planted in me that afternoon reappeared with new fire.

Knowing that it would be 10 degrees hotter upstairs, I quietly slipped out of my flimsy cotton pajamas and explored the sensation of myself, pressing the soft fabric of my panties against my own skin. Soon I needed more than that, and I peeled the panties off, too, leaving them atop the small heap of my pajamas.

With my ears straining to hear every creak in the house, I remembered how Jake had stared at my body while he did what I was doing now, earlier in the day. I knew all guys did it, and I even knew it wasn't unusual for some of them to have fantasies about their own mother.

It was an odd feeling, thinking about that, but I tried to accept it.

I wasn't supposed to be happy about that, but touching myself then, I came, and I mean I came hard, imagining him looking down at me.

Making a note in my mind that the two of us needed to talk, I pulled the soft throw-blanket over myself, and I dozed.

I awoke some time later and thought it was probably cool enough by then to crawl into bed. But when I reached down for my things, I knew instantly that my panties were gone.

Oh Christ, I thought as my groggy brain worked its way around that development. A girl can't close her eyes around here without somebody masturbating.

I thought of my son touching himself while holding my underwear. I knew instinctively how mortified he would be to find out that I knew. At least as mortified, I thought, as I was just then. So rather than going upstairs, I pulled the blanket back up and let myself fall back to sleep, hoping that Jake would bring my panties back for me before dawn. Yes, the two of us needed to talk.

I woke again when Sunday morning was just starting to break. In the thin light, I could see that my panties were back, draped innocuously on top of my summer pajamas. At least, thank God, they were dry.

The house was totally silent, and the air was pleasantly cool. I folded up the little blanket and set it on the arm of the sofa. Then, after taking one good nude stretch, I put my things back on.

The thought of crawling, alone, into the bed that Bill and I had shared for so many years made me want to cry. I crept up the stairs and peeked in on Jake. I could see underneath the rumpled sheets that he was sleeping in a t-shirt and boxers. That was good. That encouraged me. Looking back on it now, I think had he been sleeping in the nude that night, none of this would ever have happened.

I stood in his doorway for a minute, breathing in the unmistakable smell of a man, and with tears collecting unbidden I thought, don't be silly, what do you think you're resisting?

So I did it. I slid into bed beside Jake, and smoothing the covers over both of us I curled up against his back. When he startled, I touched his shoulder reassuringly, just as I had done for him hundreds of times. "It's ok, I just couldn't stand being alone."

And the two of us slept.

Later, I woke again to the slightest of movement. I was still spooning against Jake's back, but I could see that his free arm was making telltale movements. I thought, oh my God, this must be the third time in 12 hours he had pleasured himself. Ah, to be 20 again! Well, we really needed that talk.

I just lay there, then, waiting and feeling the rhythmic movement of his body. And yes, I wanted to know what my son's climax felt like through his warm body. And I knew, when he held his breath and stiffened and finally relaxed, that it was over.

I pretended to sleep for what I thought was a decent interval, and then I stole out of bed and went downstairs to the kitchen.

I fixed myself a cup of tea and took it with me out by the pool, still in my pajamas. I sat down and let myself finish waking up, wondering how far I was willing to let this thing go on -- wondering if Jake even knew what I knew, or let's face it, what I'd done. And I tried to rehearse the conversation I knew we needed to have.

It wasn't long before Jake came out and joined me, wearing just his swim trunks, and sipping a Coke. He looked at me carefully. "You OK, mom?" His concern for me was touching.

"Oh, yeah," I assured him. "I hope you don't mind comforting your old mother."

He laughed nervously at this. "You're not old ... really," he said in his teasing way.

Did I blush, then? I'd like to think not. But I continued, "You know, we used to do that all the time when you were little."

Did he squirm, then? I'd like to think so.

"Jake, we should probably have a little talk."

He tried to sip his Coke nonchalantly. I pressed on.

I suddenly found the words hard to form.

"Jake, honey, I know everyone ... masturbates sometimes."

He started to look quite embarrassed. I raised a hand.

"No, don't. It's ok. Yes, Jake, I know."

"I... I'm sorry, Mom...."

"Don't be sorry, sweety, I said everyone does it sometimes." I gave him a meaningful look. "Everyone." I paused, then went on. "Look, that doesn't bother me at all. But honey, it's just, I'm your mother. Shouldn't you... I don't know ... want a little privacy?"

Speaking of finding words hard to form. Jake was trying to say something. "But, I didn't ... I wasn't ... I thought....." I think they call that "sputtering."

I reached out and touched his arm. "Look, all I'm saying is this: last night, being able to curl up with you comforted me. Yes, I know we're both hurting about your dad. I want to be able to keep doing that. I think, though, it might be best if we both agree that if we're doing that...."

Oh God, how to finish that sentence?

"... that it's a time we don't..." and I blushed realizing I had used the word "we."

Jake repeated the word. "We?"

"Sweetheart, I told you. Everyone does it. Sometimes. Although I think you boys do it much more than us girls," and I laughed gently. "So, like, out by the pool, I don't care, really," and I made one hand gesture, though my God I must have been blushing deep purple. "But when we're cuddling together, well, I don't...," and I made a different gesture, one meaning "no."

There was silence then for a long moment. I guess it was a lot for a young man to absorb.

"And there's one more thing I think we should talk about."

At this point, the poor boy looked like he'd been shot. I wanted so badly to hug him, but this really wasn't a good time for that.

"You shouldn't stare at your old mother in her bathing suit, when you're ... touching yourself, you know, that way, down there."

He started to protest and I stopped him again.

"There are magazines, and I completely understand...."

"Mom. I have magazines. And Mom.... They have nothing on you." Oh dear Lord, my son blushed so sweetly at that, and I suppose I was some shade of red myself then.

In that moment, I imagined myself stripping out of my pajamas and panties and throwing myself naked in the pool. Where in the hell did that image come from, I wondered? I shivered then, involuntarily, and I said "Don't be silly" out loud.

"Well they don't," was all that he said.

I mouthed the words, " thank you." Then I said, "Well, Jake, I want to get into the pool now, and the only suit I think I have that's clean today is my bikini. I trust you can be a gentleman?" Without waiting for an answer, I kissed him on the cheek and walked inside.

When I came back out, I was acutely aware that my nipples were asserting themselves, shall we say, against the lined fabric of my swimsuit. And all of the thinking about groceries and housework that I could muster couldn't help them subside.

I spent that day in my smallest bikini, and Jake did his best to pretend to be reading a book.

Long after he had gone to bed that night, I resolved with all that I had to sleep in my own bed. In my light little night-shirt and panties, I lay there trying to forget all the memories of Bill. It was hopeless. Everything that I saw and touched hurt me like a knife. I had to get out of there. I tiptoed back to Jake's room. There was comfort just being with my son.

In the morning, I woke first again. The covers had been pushed down by one of us, and his sleeping hand was set on that ridge of bone just on the top of my thigh.

I forced myself to ignore how his sleeping touch made me feel. If I had let it stay there much longer, I'm afraid I would have soaked through the panties that were the only thing that separated us from....

My mind wouldn't finish that sentence. It just couldn't happen.

It couldn't.

There were other things that "couldn't." I couldn't deny that sleeping in the same bed with my son was a problem. But then, neither could I deny that it was so exquisitely comforting, especially compared to sleeping in that other cursed bed.

"We need to stop this."

I knew we needed to stop it. But every night that I tried to submit myself to the torment of sleeping alone in my own bed, I just couldn't do it. And I ended up in his room again just like before.

Then, the thing I feared the most finally happened. I awoke one morning, and it was immediately clear to me that I was not the first. Because his hand was on mine, taking me away from him. I had been covering his "morning wood" with my fingers.

Oh my God. We had to stop this.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered. "I was asleep."

"It's OK, Mom, I know. Forget it," he said, taking maybe an extra moment to let go of my hand.

"We need to stop this."

I bolted out of his bed and into my room, and finding myself sopping wet, I touched myself softly until I stopped crying and rippled with a bittersweet orgasm.

The worst problem with what Jake and I had let happen that summer was that the little arousals of it had me aching for a man to enter me. With the house on the market, and all of the cleaning and packing I was doing, there was simply no chance for me to get out into the world and find my own man.

Touching myself, as I had done from time to time, couldn't satisfy the need for live flesh inside flesh.

And while Jake obviously tried to be more discreet about his own self-pleasure, he hadn't exactly succeeded in hiding his touching from me. I don't mean that he stretched out by the pool and wanked while I watched him.

But there were warm summer mornings when I woke up clinging to his back, only to feel him quivering.

At last, on the morning that we were to load up the car and make the trip back to campus, I broke down and clutched him.

"You're the best son any mother could ask for. Thank you for respecting me, you know, and letting me sleep here."

"Oh, Mom, give me a break. You know how much I love you."

Our lips were a fraction of an inch apart then. Our pajamas, if anything, less so.

We both leaned together, and I deflected my own kiss to the side of his face. But he pressed his body against me, and the warmth of it was more than I could resist.

"Oh, Jake, love me," I begged him, not even believing the sounds that escaped my lips.

"We're both adults, after all," he breathed in my ear.

He pushed my night-shirt up over my breasts, and as he sucked on my nipples, he peeled my panties down over my hips.

I opened my legs to him. Oh my god, I opened my legs to my son.

"We need to stop this."