Accident Prone

"It's what you can't smell that arouses you most," she said softly.

He nodded. Pheromones. She must be emitting them like...well, he didn't want to think that about his mother.

She chuckled, evidently reading his mind. "This is a dangerous time for me," she admitted, sipping his drink.

He shuddered lightly at the implication. "We'll have to use protection. If the gods so deem."

Rachel eyed him wryly. Michael corrected himself. "Should the gods deem a liaison, we shall use maximum protection to ensure your continuing-"

She kicked him lightly on the shin. "Don't tempt fate." He laughed and sipped her Margarita.

This was such a wonderful night, whatever the gods deemed. Just to be here with her, alone like this, tempting fate, experiencing her up close and personal. To know they wanted the same thing, expected nothing. Let the gods decide.

"Do you think Dad suspects?"

Rachel sighed and then laughed softly. "Your father's an idiot. He'd need a Rosetta Stone to spell it out for him." She sighed. "I shouldn't tempt fate either. He could take Effie away from us." It did something inside Michael at her choice of words, unconsciously using the plural. That alone made him want to tempt fate and slip an arm around her possessively. He wondered how kissing her as a lover would feel. In the year and a half since the Drano incident, they'd never shared more that the harmless peck on the lips that all mothers and sons shared. It brought him shame that he'd fondled her in the hospital, though neither had ever voiced regret, and he'd been strictly hands off for more than a year. Their wait and see decision, though heartrending at the time, had been their salvation.

"Ten of," he noted, overhearing Ryan Seacrest's expectant voice drift in from the family room. "I'm glad we're here and not there, nice and warm and sipping each other's Margarita's." He wondered if the gods would allow his mother's bitter-sweet nectar to be sipped, and shivered again.

"I keep expecting a phone call. Effie's sick or your dad tumbled down the stairs drunk and broke his leg." She sipped his drink. "I know he doesn't have stairs so stop looking smug, brat." She thumped him softly on the chest with her fist. Then winced, and shifted off her right leg.

Grueling physical therapy had returned her to near normal mobility, and her limp was almost unnoticeable. The scar was less noticeable than anyone had expected it to be. To his chagrin, Michael had not been present for the cast removal ceremony, which his mother had forbade, having been forewarned how grossly hairy her leg would be. He was at school when she returned home, encased in sweat pants. That evening her right leg was as smooth as her left, though fish-belly white and markedly thinner. Months of exercise had strengthened and toned them both. Always slender, Rachel was now at her lowest weight since high school. She drew looks wherever she went, especially from young men his own age, another irritant for Michael. It was wrong to covet her, but he couldn't stop. Don't tempt fate.

A car passed and momentarily illuminated their hideaway. Rachel wore a soft pullover sweater over jeans. Reflected light picked out bits of color in the otherwise white knit material. It was loose enough not to delineate her breasts and keep his heart rate and blood pressure elevated. He remembered how soft those breasts were under his hand, and the little pink nipples tipping them. He didn't like to remember that during the first months of his life, he'd been attached to them. Something was inherently wrong in wanting your mother so indefensibly and not feeling shame. What he felt was overwhelming joy and excitement.

"Assuming the gods allow," he said, stealing another sip of her drink. "What happens when Effie comes home and wants to know if Mom and Big Brother are now effectively Mom and Dad? We know she's the reason we're standing here together awaiting the stroke of midnight."

She nodded thoughtfully. "If not for Effie..." She sipped Michael's drink. "I wouldn't have made it through this."

Months passed after the decision in her bedroom, time during which Michael and Rachel barely spoke. Effie was their salvation; confessor and mentor to them both, the only true adult in the family at times, Michael felt. He worshiped the ground she walked on and confided in her about everything. Mom did also. She detested this 'Let fate decide' business, simultaneously accepting and categorically rejecting the idea, calling them both idiots and dolts. Effie spent a great deal of her time nowadays smoldering. Her question, which neither would address directly, was if Michael would join Mom in her bed and effectively become Effie's father. It was a question neither 'parent' could answer.

The seconds leaked away and their trepidation grew progressively worse as, from the family room, Times Square grew increasingly boisterous. A horn blared in the distance, joined by another, and then a third, and someone lit off a stick of firecrackers, exploding in rapid fire progression as the countdown started.

"10...9...8...7..." Michael and Rachel held perfectly still, arms entwined, glasses poised at each other's lips. "...6...5...4..." Multiple strings of Ladyfingers began to fire off in the neighborhood as the magic hour approached, accompanied by a cacophony of horns. Michael had never heard so many horns usher in the new year before. The crowds cheered louder in the family room as the countdown reached zero and the celebration exploded.

"May auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?..." Michael and Rachel continued to listen to the celebration, holding each other's eyes, sipping together as the old Scottish lyrics rang in the new year.

"Welcome to 2013," Michael whispered.

Rachel smile warmly. "Do I feel any different?"

"Do I?" Michael countered. They both grinned.

"Bottom's up!" Rachel drained the last of the Margarita as Michael finished hers. They kept their hands positioned as though a dutiful butler might approach and offer a refill. Michael could hear his proper English accent. "Sir and Madam?" Maybe they should have hired one for the night, he thought. Slowly, the firecrackers and blaring horns and the discord from the family room died away.

"You truly don't look any different," Michael said.

"I expected to be struck dead by lightening. It could still happen, I guess."

"Second guess the gods at your own peril," he warned sonorously.

Rachel laughed. "Wasn't the world supposed to end last month? That didn't happen either, did it?"

"Ye of such little faith," he pitied.

"I am not testing the gods' will. I'm just making small talk. Small mind, small talk, right?

"I'd like to make you not so small over the next 9 months," he joked, lowering his eyes to her belly. Rachel snorted.

"Explain that to your father. 'Meet your grandson, Michael Jr'. He'd take him away too, and get us both locked up. Incest has got to be illegal in Maryland."

"It's illegal everywhere in the US," he said. "I researched it a while back. You might be interested to know that in Maryland, the law specifically applies to vaginal intercourse only. I read the statute. It doesn't mention any other sexual acts." He raised his eyebrows speculatively and got a kick in the shin for his trouble.

"Are you as petrified as me?"

Rachel shivered in answer. The romanticisms surrounding the act of incest was so much bullshit, Michael thought; the reality was frightening as hell. He worried that he-or Rachel-couldn't go through with it. Fear was a powerful deterrent. Guilt also.

"Can I ask you something?"

Rachel nodded stiffly.

"Do you love me enough for this? To actually let me take you to bed?" Her answering shiver was twice as hard as the first. With his free hand, he took hers and placed it directly against his crotch. Though he was anything but erect, she convulsively balled her fist and twisted it away. He held it loosely by the wrist. She breathed raggedly through her mouth and closed her eyes and set her jaw, to keep her teeth from chattering. Michael thought, This was the moment of truth.

She said nothing for several minutes while the panic attack eased and her heart rate returned to something like normal. Michael had suffered one as well. He was relieved to still be standing there with her in the darkened hallway. Finally, she reopened her eyes and met his. "I didn't run," she croaked. "I thought I would."

"It was pretty close, for both of us, I think."

She nodded. So close. So very scary.

She unwound her arm and sat the glass on the nearby dining room table. "I'm ready to go upstairs. I might have another panic attack, and if I do, just coax me through it gently. I promise I won't run out on you, Michael."

Setting aside his glass, he bent and swept her legs out from beneath her and hefted her 110 lbs or so in his strong arms. Surprised, but accepting of being carried upstairs to bed, she placed her arms around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder.

"Be gentle with me, Michael. I'm easily breakable."

Thinking how true that was, Michael carried her upstairs to their bedroom.

THE END