Forbidden Valentine

I woke that morning with Mom lying beside me as she always was. She was sixty years old and had recently retired from the airline. I gazed upon her stunning beauty as I always did; I couldn't help but notice how remarkably peaceful and luminous she looked that morning as she slept. So angelic. Then I noticed she wasn't breathing. Carefully lying my head gently upon her chest, the lullaby of her heartbeat was no longer there.

With tears spilling out of my eyes, I felt a smile fill my lips. I tenderly caressed my mother's beautiful face and gently stroked her gorgeous silver hair. I found myself to be exceptionally calm; even serene. There was no urgency to call for help. It wasn't needed.

She was gone.

I cuddled up beside my mother and my wife one final time; wrapping my arms around her, I wept as I never had before. I had to have these few moments alone with her; not only to weep, but also to absorb her strength. Madeline would be up soon, and she was going to be absolutely leveled by this. And she would cling to me for strength and protection; just as I had clung to Mom when Daddy died.

But who was I going to cling to now?

The answer came that night.

We decided to check into a hotel as neither of us wanted to be in the house. We got a suite with two queen size beds. Madeline was so exhausted. She showered first and crawled into her bed. By the time I came out of the bathroom after my shower, I expected her to be fast asleep and at first, it appeared she was. But as I sat down on my bed:

"Mama," Madeline whispered.

"Yes, my love," I answered.

"Can I please come sleep with you," she asked; her voice sounding so young and innocent. "I don't want to be alone."

My heart and soul both practically leapt out of my body with joy. I had to fight with every ounce of strength I could muster to hold off the tears.

And just as it had been the night Daddy had died; when Mom held me in her arms and our precious bond began to form, so did it begin anew as I held Madeline in my arms all that night. Over the course of the next year, Madeline and I moved from Raleigh to Miami, Florida where I took a job as an Assistant District Attorney.

As I suspected from the very start, the medical examiner could never determine the cause of Mom's death. She was in perfect health; all her organs were in tiptop condition with no signs of even the slightest damage, illness or trauma. For some reason, her body just shut off. They ultimately declared her death as by purely natural causes.

By the time Madeline was eighteen, she had been sleeping with me in my bed every night since Mom's death and we had become incredibly close; just like Mom and I had done. Madeline graduated high school in the top of her class and went on a full athletic scholarship to the University of Miami where she pledged a sorority and was accepted. Then just after Madeline's twentieth birthday, I was elected the District Attorney of Miami-Dade County.

And that brings me up to this very night; which again, just happens to be Valentine's Day. Crawling into bed with me earlier this evening, Madeline wrapped her arms around me and finally asked me what the true nature of mine and her grandmother's relationship was.

So, I told her. I told her everything!

I had wanted to tell her for so long because she had often wondered aloud why I never married or why I seldom to never dated and why Glama never married again or dated. Why did I sleep with Glama in her bed? So, I told my baby everything! And by the time I finished, the look in Madeline's eyes was transcendent and utterly precious.

So, I proceeded to ask her why she never dated? Why did she always sleep with me in my bed?

The next thing I knew, Madeline had tears racing down her cheeks. And as I softly caressed her cheek, she confessed her forbidden love and incestuous desire for me. And as my own daughter spoke those beautiful but forbidden words, I suddenly became Mom; and found myself facing the same dilemma.

I'm in love with and sexually attracted to my own child. How can this be? What do I do?

Madeline then went on to speak, almost verbatim, the very words I used against myself in the mirror the night she was conceived. Telling me how I'd given her my physical beauty but that I had not given all my other beauties.

At that moment, my life came full circle.

For the first time, I truly understood how every ounce of my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual beauty was given to me by my daughter. She had shaped me, defined me and completed me as both a woman and a human being. That's how Mom finally answered the dilemma of falling in love with her own daughter and it's how I answered falling in love with mine.

It also made clear why Mom had passed so suddenly and without explanation. I was the love of Mom's life; but she was not the love of mine. That love was now lying right beside me and confessing her love for me.

Madeline and I made love for the very first time tonight.

And I was her first sexual experience. She confessed that she had wanted nobody else but me to be her first as her virtue; or virginity if you prefer was as she saw it, the most precious gift she could give. And she wanted the person she loved more than life itself, to have it.

Me.

Her hero.

Her mother.

Her Forbidden Valentine.