A Holiday with My Mother

She gave a faint Gallic shrug. 'You have nothing to apologise about. You're not responsible for the autonomic responses of your nervous system.'

Well that was my mother all over, putting it into a scientific context and taking all the mystique out of it.

'I can't remember what I was dreaming about,' I told her.

She smiled again. 'That's a pity. It sounded as though you were having fun.'

How long had I lain there with a bloody great hard-on? And how long had my mum been looking at it? I blushed harder and got up from the sun bed. 'Time for a swim before lunch.' I walked self-consciously over to the pool and slipped into the water, which was pleasantly cool.

The next day was just as hot and we swam and dozed by the pool again and retreated under the pergola as the sun reached its zenith and blazed down on the patio, making it painful to walk on.

Again I dozed on my sunbed and again I awoke sometime later with an iron-hard erection and a big damp patch on my swimming trunks. This time I had more of an idea of what I'd been dreaming about, and, inevitably, it was centred on my mother. I'd dreamed that she was in trouble in the pool and I dived in to help her. That was ridiculous; the pool was only five feet deep, but that's dreams for you. In my dream I took her in my arms and carried her out of the pool and laid her on a sunbed, where I massaged her breasts in a sort of facsimile of CPR. Then I kissed her and she put her arms around me and that was when I woke up.

Mum was still reading her book, but she turned to me when I picked up my drink.

'Another interesting dream, I see, Callum?' She was looking at my crotch again.

'yes, I'm sorry, it's really embarrassing...'

'Don't be embarrassed,' she said, matter-of-factly. 'I'm not, and there's no reason for you to be.' She gave that little quintessentially French shrug again. 'Men get erections, especially young men. Don't worry about it.'

So I tried not to worry about it and I largely succeeded. Which is to say that I continued to get hard quite a lot, especially by the pool or on a sunbed, where it was particularly obvious, but I tried to just accept it and act as though it wasn't there. In short I didn't try to cover it up but neither did I in any way flaunt it.

I was hard in front of her at other times, too. For example when we finished dinner and sat in one of the little two-seater settees under the pergola, almost touching each other. It was less obvious under these circumstances because I was usually wearing shorts, which did a better job of disguising a boner than swimming trunks. It was also dark.

But mum noticed.

It was about the fourth day of our virtual incarceration. The midday temperature had nudged forty Celsius, and in the evening it was still oppressively hot. We ate outside again, inside was almost unbearable, and we both cursed Amelie and Benoit for not having air-conditioning installed. After dinner we moved to the settee under the pergola and sat gasping and sweaty while moths buzzed and fluttered around the lights on the side elevations of the villa.

I'd been thinking about my mother on and off all day. To be precise I'd been thinking about her body, specifically those bits of it which were covered by her bikini. I'd been fantasising about how her breasts would look and how big her nipples were. How much pubic hair she had and if she trimmed it. Normal, son-like thoughts. Now I sat beside her, my thigh almost touching hers, my arm inches from her hip. I could smell the scent she had put on before dinner and the faint salty odour of her perspiration. I was very hard, despite the fact that I'd masturbated twice that day.

'I love the French climate, but God, it's so unbearable this evening,' I complained. 'I can hardly breathe!'

'Let's swim,' said my mother, suddenly.

'Yes let's. Our swimming costumes will be dry by now.' I remember as a child, hating to put on a wet swimming costume.

'Never mind our costumes. Let's swim with nothing on! It'll feel wonderful.'

'What!' I gasped.

'Oh don't be so English, Callum. You haven't got anything I haven't seen before, even that relentless erection of yours. And I'm sure I haven't. Besides, the pool lights aren't on.' She gripped my arm. 'Come on! Just think how the water will feel.'

I was carried away by her enthusiasm. This was out of character for my mother but I remembered other occasions when she'd temporarily cast off her scientific persona, usually when we were on holiday, or in France.

'But I'm... I've got...'

'I know. And I'm sure the water will take the heat out of it.'

So we stripped off in the darkness and we walked out to the poolside, my mother in front of me. And in the faint light I could see the outline of her naked form and my cock throbbed and waved about in the stifling air.

It felt different in the pool. It wasn't just that it was dark, although we usually had the lights on in the pool at night. It was also the feeling of the water in direct contact with my genitals, a sort of super-nakedness. A silky-smooth caressing that did nothing to soften my member.

We both swam sedate breaststroke, not wishing to disturb the night with a lot of splashing. All I could see of my mother was the dark blob of her head, a few metres away. We reached the far end of the pool and rested, our arms on the edge.

'You see,' my mother said softly, 'it's so refreshing. So liberating.'

Behind us the moon, almost full, rose above the chestnut tree and bathed the hillside in a silvery light, reflecting off the water, shattering to a thousand tiny silver flashes.

I turned to face it and my mother did the same and I saw her face in the moonlight, her eyes bright, her black hair plastered onto her scalp, dripping beads of water like little drops of quicksilver. And in that moment she looked like some sensual, mythical being; a water nymph perhaps, from an older and more remote time, and I felt my desire for her rise and threaten to engulf me.

So I pushed off from the edge and swam and mother swam alongside me, neither of us talking, just drinking in the moment as the moonlight grew stronger.

After some twenty minutes or so my mother climbed out using the little ladder and stood on the pool edge, brushing water from her naked body. The moon blazed down, coating her in a silver sheen, a dark smudge at her loins. I had never seen anything like it and I almost cried out with emotion. She walked slowly over to the pergola and sat down on the settee, still naked, and I climbed out and followed her and sat down beside her, the tiny night breeze providing blessed cooling.

I was rock hard. I could barely think straight I was so aroused. But I sat, almost defiantly, with my cock pointing at my stomach. It was dark under the leafy pergola but there was enough moonlight for my mother to see my rigid penis. And for me to see her breasts, although I struggled not to look.

We sat while the water on our skin dried on the night breeze, saying nothing, just looking out quietly at the moonlit lake and the vague shapes of the hills beyond. It was a magical moment and neither of us wanted to disrupt it, although perhaps our reasons were different.

Eventually my mother stirred and half turned to me.

'Does it ever go down,' she asked, a smile in her voice, looking down into my lap.

We went in shortly afterwards and went to our separate bedrooms where we finished drying ourselves and went to bed and tried to sleep. I masturbated first, of course. Recalling the vision of my mother's body, bathed in moonlight, remembering how it had felt to have her sitting next to me, naked. As I spurted my hot spunk over my stomach I told myself that we would swim naked again the next day.

The following day, the heatwave persisted. We passed the day in more swimming and sunbathing and dozing and reading. My mother's skin was very dark now, betraying her ancestral roots in the sandy desolation of north Africa. Tonight, I hoped, we would swim naked again.

Not, I told myself, that anything would happen between my mother and me, of course. The very idea was too weird, abhorrent even. But at the same time the continued exposure to my mother's scantily clad body was delicious, and I wanted it to continue. I tried briefly to rationalise this dichotomy by telling myself that looking was fine, looking was normal, but touching, physical contact, would be taboo. I didn't classify thinking as ok or not ok, but I was thinking almost all the time about my mother, now. And after a brief internal struggle I had given myself over to thoughts of the most sexually explicit kind. As I masturbated, which I was now doing two or three times a day, I imagined having full sex with my mother; I saw her mouth descending on my cock; I licked her pussy and tasted her juices, musky and exotic.

It was no wonder that I was hard so much of the time.

That evening, after dinner, we sat again in the darkness of the pergola, sipping chilled wine, an ice bucket on the table next to us. Again we were sitting on the two-seater settee, inches apart. Again my erection was tenting my shorts and clouding my thinking.

Was it just my imagination or was there a faint aura of sexual tension between us this evening. My mother sat calmly, dressed in a light blouse and shorts, gazing out at the moonlit landscape, her thoughts hidden from me. I, on the other hand, felt myself quivering with suppressed excitement. When should I suggest swimming? Should I pretend indifference and wait for mum to suggest it? But what if she didn't?

By nine-thirty the moon had risen fully, reflecting off the pool and casting faint shadows.

'I think it's hotter than last night,' I began, trying to stop my voice quavering.

'Would you like to swim again, Callum?' asked my mother, quietly, still staring out across the lake.

'Yes, let's.'

I stood up and started unbuttoning my short-sleeved shirt. The word 'naked' hadn't been mentioned; I didn't think it needed to be. Beside me, my mother also rose and took her blouse off. We both removed our shorts and mum straightened and unclipped her bra and I saw the outline of her breasts again in the darkness of the pergola and I almost choked as I bent to take down my underpants, releasing my cock to spring up in the thick air. Mum slid her panties off and walked out onto the moonlit patio, her dark figure touched here and there by the reflected light of the moon, defining her shape in a subtle and impossibly sensuous way.

I felt overwhelmed, choked with emotion. Desire, principally, but there was love there too, and pride.

We both slipped into the pool, avoiding disturbing the magic of the silver silence with mundane splashing.

'God, that's sublime,' I whispered, feeling the water cool my heated body. 'Shame we haven't got a pool at home.'

'It wouldn't be the same, in England. Here it's magical.' She swam off towards the other end, a dark shape in the water, a trail of silver in her wake. I followed and we rested by the far edge and, as we had done the night before, turned to face the moon, now almost full.

My mother's face seemed sculpted out of mahogany inlaid with quicksilver. Her eyes reflected the light and made her seem wild, untamed. Unscientific. As though reading my mind she turned to me.

'I feel different here,' she said. 'Less of a scientist, more of a free spirit. Do you feel the magic of the night, Callum? I feel like anything could happen!'

Well what did that mean, exactly? I felt my guts churn with desire and possibility. Did my mother want something to happen between us? Impossible. It was just wishful thinking. And if the impossible did occur, was it what I wanted?

We swam for longer that evening; it was nearly half-past ten when my mother finally climbed out, brushing the water from her skin. She seemed in no hurry to go back into the dark anonymity of the pergola, but sat on the pool's edge, her feet dangling in the water, the moon full on her body, her breasts goose-pimpled by the night breeze, her areolae big and dark, her thimble shaped nipples erect. Her breasts were small and pert, much as I had imagined them; the size and shape of an orange. Standing in the water, my head close to her knees, I could look up and see them in all their glory, and I stared, unashamed, my cock like steel.

'Do you like my breasts?' she asked suddenly, looking down at me. She straightened up and cupped them in her hands. 'I always thought they were quite a nice shape.'

I choked, hardly believing my ears. My mother and I were having a naked conversation about her breasts.

'They're wonderful,' I stuttered, embarrassed by the conversation and the fact that I'd been staring at them.

My mother laughed softly. 'Nicer than Cathy's?'

I didn't answer. I was finding it difficult to breathe. The air seemed to have got thicker, almost liquid. And who was this person sitting above me? She seemed as remote from the logical, calculating scientist in her university laboratory as Australopithecus did to modern-day man.

'I'll get the wine,' she said, getting up. 'It'll be nice having a glass by the pool, with our feet in the water.'

She walked to the pergola and I looked at her naked buttocks. As she had stood up I had caught a glimpse of her pussy, covered in a thick mat of black hair and I had felt the blood roar in my ears.

She returned less than a minute later, carrying our glasses and the bucket, which dripped condensation onto the flagstones. Her breasts swayed slightly as she walked, but my eyes were fixed on her loins, with their dark bush, shadowed with the moon behind her.

She sat down and poured us both a glass.

'Are you going to get out?' she asked. 'Or are you going to stand there staring at my breasts.'

'Sorry,' I mumbled, climbing up the little ladder and sitting down next to her and taking the proffered glass.

'I'm sorry,' she smiled at me, looking down into my lap. 'I've embarrassed you.'

'Well the whole thing is a bit embarrassing. Us being naked together and seeing you... your...' I tailed off.

'There are many families in France who practice nudity, in the privacy of their homes. It's much less common in England, I think.' Since we had been here, her grammar seemed to have taken on shades of her native French. 'Don't be embarrassed that you are aroused by the sight of a female body. It is very natural.'

Not if it's your mother, I didn't reply. What was going on here? I'd been fantasising about my mother and suddenly here she was responding in a manner that should have had me drooling at the mouth. Go with the flow, I told myself. This is what you wanted, isn't it?

I sipped my now tepid wine and sneaked a look at my mother. She was looking at me, her expression unreadable. Then her eyes dropped to my erection.

'Do you masturbate very much, Callum?' she asked, quietly.

'Yes,' I said, hoarsely. 'A lot.'

'So do I,' my mother replied. 'Much more since we've been here.' She looked up at the moon and I saw its light reflected in her eyes. 'I feel different here, Callum. More free, more,' she searched for the word, 'I don't know, younger perhaps, like I was when I was a teenager. Does that sound odd to you?'

I didn't answer, couldn't trust myself to speak. My mother had just told me that she was masturbating a lot. There was a silence between us but I felt as though something was building up, something big and primal and frightening.

We finished the bottle of wine, our second; we'd had a bottle of red with dinner and I was feeling dizzy with the alcohol, on top of all the other emotions. My mother never seemed to get drunk.

'Do you want me to get another bottle?' I asked.

'No, darling. I'm going to bed now.' She leaned over and kissed my cheek and then she stood and walked over to the pergola where she picked up her discarded clothing. Then, with a long look at me, still sitting on the edge of the pool, she walked slowly over to the house, her naked body dark against the moonlit white stucco as she disappeared inside.

She hadn't said "goodnight", or "see you in the morning" so was she expecting me to follow her? To her bedroom? I felt hot all of a sudden. What was going on? Was my mother looking for intimacy with me? Or was it as she said, she was just feeling more liberated in the surroundings of her childhood. I quickly decided I couldn't walk into her bedroom, naked. Not now. Not tonight.

I sat thinking for another half hour, then I picked up the ice bucket and the empty glasses and went into the house. It was stifling hot and, even with my bedroom window open wide, I lay naked on the bed, covered in a sheen of sweat. My cock was still rigid and I started stroking it, feeling it's weight and girth, rolling my foreskin over my glans. I looked at the wall separating my bedroom from my mother's and I imagined her in bed, a scant twenty feet away, perhaps even now masturbating herself to an orgasm in the humid darkness. How did she do it? Which finger did she use? Did she have a vibrator? What would she be thinking about as she approached her climax? I had a vision of her sliding a big dildo into herself while she massaged her clitoris. The vision felt real and hot and I arched my back as a powerful orgasm crashed through me, pumping gouts of spunk onto my stomach and chest.

Afterwards I felt a twinge of shame, but that was rapidly replaced by a twinge of excitement, of anticipation. What would happen tomorrow? The bounds of normality seemed to be stretched increasingly as the days went by. What was the end game? Would my mother and I have sex? It seemed so unlikely, but then all the things that were happening around the pool and on the patio would have seemed a ridiculous flight of fancy a week ago.

Eventually, about three in the morning, as the temperature at last started to fall, I fell into an uneasy sleep.

The next morning, the local radio cheerfully announced that the heatwave wasn't showing any signs of abating and warning the elderly and vulnerable to stay out of the sun, preferably in an air-conditioned room. Who were they kidding? Hardly anybody had air-con in this area.

'Looks like another day by the pool,' said my mother as we ate our breakfast under the shade of the vines twined around the pergola. I glanced at her but her expression was blank.

So we spent the day as before: swimming, sunbathing, snoozing, reading. First by the pool and then in the shade. It's always amazed me how doing nothing can be so tiring; I slept a lot during the day and had some bizarre dreams. They seemed to be sexual in nature, but more than that I could never remember after I'd woken up. Needless to say I had an erection most of the time but by now I was ignoring it and my mother was too, apart from the odd sneaky look and a couple of pointed comments.

The evening too was much like the past few days: we ate on the patio and afterwards sat on the two-seater settee while we sipped our way through a bottle of my mother's favourite Chablis, sitting in a bucket of melting ice on a table next to us.

As before, we sat mostly in silence, staring out into the darkness of the night, lost in our thoughts. About nine o'clock the moon rose behind us and began to cast it's silver light over the patio and the pool.

'Shall we swim in the moonlight again?' my mother asked, softly. 'It feels very special.'

So we took our clothes off and walked side by side to the pool where we slipped into the tepid water.

'God, this is heavenly,' my mother said, pushing away from the side and doing a lazy breaststroke over to the other side. I followed, diving under the water with a sudden urge to see her naked loins, but it was too dark.

I surfaced next to her. 'Shall we open another bottle?' I asked. I wanted something to happen tonight, something more defining. And having another bottle of wine would give me the courage to make the first move.