Love Letter

'Well people are shallow,' Maddie pointed out.

'And so long as they have more money than brains, I have a career,' he smirked and toasted with a beer.

'It wasn't the sex, was it?' his mother asked out of the blue.

'Huh?'

'The sex wasn't bad!' she assumed.

Trying not to appear fazed, Anthony shook his head but struggled to answer. Again he was taken aback. 'No the sex was amazing. Lovemaking actually, mom; I'm a gentleman now don't you know.'

'Sex is sex. Sex is good for you. Sex is fun,' Maddie shot off, eyes peering into her drink and then surprisingly piercing her son's questioning gaze. That caused him to look away before he blushed. And now Maddie was thinking of other things again, or maybe she hadn't stopped thinking of those things. She sighed. 'You don't make love all the time, you know?'

'You don't?' That truly puzzled him. Her eyes sparkled in that moment.

'You make love to consummate, but it isn't just love that you consummate.'

'I'm drunk and don't know what you mean,' Anthony admitted and welcomed the explanation. His mother grinned momentarily, met his eyes again, and then settled there as she carefully chose her words.

Under the circumstances, it also crossed Anthony's mind that if it wasn't for faithful old alcohol, he might not have been so comfortable having a 1 on 1 with his own mother on the subject of sex and what it meant to her.

'People make love for the first time to show each other how they feel,' she began. 'And they make love involuntarily, controlled by their feelings rather than choosing to make them be known. Older couples also make love to make up for the absence of physical love. If you force it, if you pretend, then it's not lovemaking, because love is only as strong as it is fragile.'

'What about making love just for the sake of it?'

'Well in my experience, sometimes a girl just needs to be turned on and ruined, and you shouldn't keep her in suspense,' Maddie responded without really thinking about it. She really must have been too drunk to hear herself. 'So, how was the sex? I have to ask,' she grinned. 'Debbie never fooled me with her innocent looks!'

'We ruined each other a lot. But now that you make me look at it like that,' Anthony paused for thought, 'we probably tried too hard towards the end...'

'We always do in the end,' Maddie consoled. 'So enjoy what you have when you have it.'

'Well I'm not enjoying anything right now,' Anthony lamented.

'I haven't had the chance to enjoy any sex of any kind in a very long time,' Maddie chimed in on his misfortune. 'I suppose I'm too old now...'

'You're not.' Anthony's nostrils flared. A suppressed gasp exited his nostrils. 'Here you are telling me about the ins and outs of lovemaking and relationships, my mom, the sex therapist,' Anthony remarked, 'but you refuse to think a good thing about yourself.'

But then he was beginning to feel bold, seeing that she could be so open when it came to his life. 'So you've not had any good sex lately, mom? When's the last time?'

'I almost did around the time you were seventeen, but I decided against it...'

That explanation lingered for some reason. 'Why?' Anthony demanded.

'Because it wasn't right.'

'Why wasn't it right?' Anthony demanded.

'The timing - we had other things that mattered more at the time...'

'Who was he?' Anthony demanded. She didn't play ball.

6

Midnight struck. Maddie and her son were both high and dry by that point. All the alcohol was gone, and they were beginning to sober up a little. For a long while they had fallen silent and just revelled quietly in each others' company.

Once in a while came a hug and a kiss, an "I love you", and "I'm glad you're here".

'Sleepy?' Anthony, who was quite awake, asked his mother.

'Not particularly,' she said quietly but then stood up. 'Wait here a moment,' she muttered almost to herself. 'I have something I want to share with you...'

Anthony hung in suspense, and in the still of her absence, still wondered why this place felt strange to him, as if he wasn't entirely here. He supposed that maybe he had moved on since. That was probably why.

When she returned, Anthony saw a sheet of old writing paper in her possession. Maddie looked at him with no particular expression and perched herself on the sofa beside him again, a little closer. She handed him the letter and then as soon as his eyes settled on the first two words, it all came rushing back...

"Dear mom..."

'I kept it all these years...'

'Ohhhh shit,' Anthony gasped and flushed a sudden radiant red deep in his cheeks. 'Mom, why?'

'Read it, please,' she pleaded calmly. 'I'd like you to read it and remember.'

Anthony read it; the love letter he'd once wrote to his mom, confessing not only his intensely deep feelings for her as his mother, but also his desire to make love with her. Harder and hotter, he blushed beside her. He'd have been lying, had Maddie asked, if he could bear to read every word. His mind froze two thirds the way through.

'Why did you keep this?' he asked, his tone and his expression both of incredulity. His eyes wide and searching met hers, calm and proud.

'Because it's the only love letter anyone ever wrote me,' she declared. 'Because I find it beautiful to this day; because it makes me think in ways I'd never thought before that day, even though it terrified me at first!'

'You didn't show this to anyone, did you?' Anthony panicked.

'No, it's still our secret. I had to keep it to myself. It was written for me, and me only.'

Anthony's heart hammered. So did hers. His eyes returned to the letter. "I daydream about you and me in bed, making love". He groaned then, not only for how tacky it now sounded in his mind, but also for the fact that it got a sudden rise from within the confines of his shorts.

'You were only young,' she said from his side, but right now she sounded distant. And he didn't hear what she was saying, only the suggestion of some sort of excuse, or platitude. 'You didn't understand what you were asking.'

'Well I'm sober now,' he quipped. His mom chuckled under her breath and ran her hand smoothly down his forearm until it reached his hand and safely took away the letter. She set it on the arm of the sofa beside her and returned immediately to her son.

'So am I, mostly,' she said gazing. 'So tell me something - you never stopped feeling that way about me did you?'

Again Anthony blushed, but managed to control himself. If she was going to take him apart, now was as good a time as any. 'No.'

She only smiled at him, though blushing furiously all the while; a rarity considering the pure fairness of her skin. 'I know. I always knew. I've always thought about it.'

'Mom, please just say it.'

Maddie thought hard about it one last time. Now really was as good a time as any. Her smile beamed before easing off as she studied his radiance, his tired eyes; the pain in them. As good a time as any...

As good a time as any because her stomach would always wind up into knots at the thoughts she had. Talking about it now, having summoned up the courage, those knots were nothing compared to the lead weight in her stomach.

'You just weren't old enough, and that was why I did what I did - to do the right thing!' Maddie explained. Anthony just watched, perfectly still where he sat, and listened. Not for the first or second time, he wasn't sure of what he was hearing. 'If you were eighteen or older, I'd have probably let you...'

'Mom, are you saying this to make me feel less weird or...'

'No hopes of that happening, babe, but I just think you need to hear this before I'm sober enough to remember saying it, okay?'

'Okay,' Anthony agreed uncomfortably.

'You loved me so much and I understood how you felt, and what you were going through,' Maddie went on, opening the emotional floodgate. Her heart now raced, her veins laced with fear and adrenaline, and yet it felt liberating. 'And in my mind I wished I could let you have what you wanted, to make you as happy as I possibly could. And I even wondered what good it might do me. I had needs too!'

'I have no words,' Anthony responded dumbly, flipping the words from his mouth with a bone dry tongue. Then his mother sighed, smiled tiredly, and cupped one smooth cheek in the palm of one hand.

'You don't need any. You do need sleep though, and so do I. I'm going to bed,' she finished and stood up to leave. 'Don't leave it too late...'

7

Sleep? Ha!

Who was sleeping off that red pill? Not Anthony. And for a while neither did his mother, who couldn't believe she'd had the strength to exhume those old thoughts and feelings, for her own son to see.

When the initial shock was out of the way she found herself taken aback by the new thoughts and feelings creeping in, and the questions that swirled around in her mind. Was this some next step in her own evolution, or a step towards something else inevitable?

Anthony, heart thumping in the dark, and a weight in his gut no different from the one his mother felt, was hard as a rock. That was no surprise, considering what had been affirmed that night. What did surprise him was how he now scared himself, in his ruminations, out of touching himself; of seeking relief.

Honestly, he had no idea how he would sleep, or even find his way safely into the next day, and what the future would hold beyond then. He imagined her only playfully forgetting what she'd said, and teasing him towards the point of wanting to remind her in so many words...

"You're making a big deal", she might have said. "It can't have been anything if I don't remember what I said. Tell me, if you really must; what did I say?"

"You told me you'd have sex with me if I was old enough", he would remind her. But then; "Were you actually serious, mom?"

"Well..." a stealthily seductive smile would stretch her lips from their usual contemplative pout. "You certainly are old enough now..."

Go the fuck to sleep, Anthony commanded of himself, before he went out of his mind. His still-hard beating heart wouldn't let him, though, and neither would the part of him fuelled by the things he saw in his imagination; not just what he imagined hearing and saying.

8

'Sleep well?' came the voice from beyond the black. Anthony had a time of waking up, dragging himself up through that veil of deep sleep and into the sunlight blinding him even before he could will his eyes open.

He knew that he'd heard his mother speaking to him. He sensed her there. And again, yet again, he sensed the shameless glory he was sporting. He was almost too stiff to move, not that he wanted to start waving it around in front of her.

'Hmmm,' he groaned, 'not really...'

'Oh, I wonder why that was,' she said, unmoving and so making her place in the room hard to figure. Anthony opened his eyes cautiously to the sun-drenched scene and saw her milling about, looking out through the bedroom window.

You know why, surely, he wanted to say, but thought better of it. She had to know the effect last night's talk had on him. He just wondered if she was going to pretend after all not to recall any of it.

'What time is it?'

'Just gone eleven,' Maddie's smooth tones came back from a distance. She was in her own world, or caught up with whatever had her attention outside. 'I thought about waking you sooner but you weren't moving at all and I figured you must have needed it.'

Anthony turned and looked at her. From the corner of his eye as he lay in bed he had figured she was dressed down in one of her little white vests with the stringy little straps - which always accentuated both curves and tone. Maddie was in shape, but importantly she had shape.

He could see that now more than ever when he caught a close-up view of her standing there in her panties, a thin garment filled out by her considerable hips and pear-shaped ass. Or what were those she was wearing? Naturally, he asked.

'These old things,' beginning her reply, led Anthony to disagree. They looked pretty new. They weren't the type of panties a sexless single mother wore, unless she was out to impress. 'These are called boy-shorts, honey,' she said with a pendulum swing of her hips.

'Black lace, and transparent,' Anthony mused, and hoped she caught onto his suggesting tone. When she turned to him, he caught a faint triangular patch of darkness at the V between her thighs. Anthony realised that he was looking right at her trimmed pubic patch, from not even a meter away.

'Does son approve?' she teased, hiding a smile. It seemed almost cruel.

'You'd only have to flash those and you'd get laid,' he said without really thinking about how it would sound, but still to his surprise.

'Aren't you bold, considering the drunk talk we had last night...'

'Oh you remembered?' Anthony asked, hoping that his erection would soon subside. He was getting tired of hiding himself, especially wondering whether she had already caught another eyeful while he was still sleeping. He had to wonder. Was this some game?

Maddie wanted to deny it, but at the same time she wanted to leave it out there. She smirked and cleared her throat, and then with a hint of resignation, 'I remember some. You might have to jog my memory, because wine mixes things up for me.'

He laughed it off, assured her, 'you behaved,' and sat up, running a hand through the scruff of messy short hair on top of his head.

'But did you?' she asked and the question hung in the air.

'I think I managed,' he offered.

'So, Debbie never wore anything like this for you?'

Again, caught off guard, Anthony searched for anything to fill the silence. He didn't find it in the V above his mother's thighs. He looked away before she caught him, but was too late. 'She knew how to wow, but...'

'But...'

Two can play this game, he thought. 'Well, let's face it, mom; a woman doesn't have to dress to be attractive if her man is already attracted to her, aaaand...'

He stalled, short for courage. 'And?' his mother asked.

'I just don't always see the point of dressing up to get naked,' Anthony surrendered. The mood was gone. He didn't want to tease or to be teased. Not thinking about Debbie!

'So are you saying that if my man saw me all gift-wrapped, he wouldn't want to undo me?'

'Shut up,' Anthony said, suddenly barking with laughter. His cheeks were bright red and he didn't know where to look. 'Get out, please, I want to get up and shower!'

That was more like it, Maddie thought to herself, just as caught up in the moment. His laughter was an immediate relief, and not just for the awkwardness. What else was so evident was his emotional pain. It was a relief to her that he could still cope healthily enough.

'Get out!' he commanded her again, but Maddie wasn't having any of it.

'What are you gonna do, spank your old mom?' she dared with a little wiggle of her tush.

'I'm naked under here,' Anthony blushed, pointing at the covers crumpled up in his lap.

'So what - you shower in a scuba suit?'

'Mom!'

'Go on, show me some ass, it's only fair,' she giggled.

'It's not my ass I'm hiding,' Anthony slipped, now getting to his feet with the bed sheet around his waist, trying to usher his mother through the bedroom door.

'Uh-huh,' Maddie voiced her doubtlessness, and before Anthony could react quickly enough, she had whipped the sheet away and bolted for the door, leaving him standing there defeated and buck naked.

And Maddie, who was now laughing her way from his bedroom to her, had made no mistake. He was still pretty hard under there, and he was pretty long too, and she was soon pretty moist as a result.

She could only begin to imagine the sex he and Debbie had, or used to. A confessed love-maker and ruiner, a romantic who seemed to care as much about feeling something as he did about the visual aspect of sex, and clearly gifted. Anthony was anything but average.

That girl must have ruined him a fair few times as well, to say the least. Thinking about it, in maybe a little too much graphic detail, Maddie told herself when the laughing subsided that she had to draw a line.

That thought went out the window when Anthony crept by the bedroom door, on his way to the bathroom, sporting a fuller and heavier looking erection. And in the flicker of a gaze he saw that she saw it, and she saw that he saw her looking!

9

How do I tell her that I somehow know the game she's playing?

How do I tell her that she's teasing me and I know it?

How do I tell her that I know what she's thinking?

How do I tell her that I'm still thinking the same?

All these questions ran through Anthony's mind as he towelled off his hot, steaming flesh, beaded and glistening from his shower. Accepting himself as some despicable dog, he knew it was so hard to stop obsessing like he'd learned to all those years ago, and yet now he was at it again.

If the door was open right now would she need an excuse to walk in and take another look? She seemed fixated from the moment he opened his eyes, and she wasn't acting herself.

My mom wants me and she knows it and she doesn't know how to handle it; that was the final thought that played on his mind, and for the rest of the day it played on loop while he noted all the signs.

He couldn't deny that he somewhat invited the increased closeness. He was smiling more, genuinely felt happier, and didn't need encouraging to play along with this strange chemistry now playing out between them.

There was the slightest of touching at every natural opportunity, and failing that; "give mom a hug!"

And despite the fact that Anthony did have work to get on with, and she would give him his space and time to do it, she was there every hour reminding him to take a break, with a scruff of the hair, a kiss on the cheek, or a hug out of the blue from behind.

10

At dinner that night she pulled off another surprise, though he supposed the conversation would arise soon enough. 'I want you to think about maybe moving back in until your situation gets better. Would you think about it?'

Anthony was once again at a loss. The fact was, though, and would likely always remain, that he enjoyed his independence, no matter in what capacity. Maddie spotted his reluctance before he even spoke. 'I don't know, mom. It's not that I wouldn't like to, but for a start it would be a little bit more difficult to travel more for work. But wouldn't I get in the way here?'

'I don't mean forever. I just mean while you're alone. You got no love on your own. It can be unhealthy when you're unhappy.' Maddie was toying with her food in a way that made it somehow look like work and that was where her concentration appeared to remain, so not to pressure her son. 'It'd be cheaper on living. You can be just as miserable here but still have someone to pick up the slack on laundry and cooking...'

'You drive a hard bargain, lady,' Anthony mused.

So hard, Maddie thought, and then stifled a sudden laugh. Her son eyed her suspiciously. 'Just think about it. No pressure,' she concluded before she made the mistake of driving him away.

'So what do you want to do tonight?' Anthony asked first, to her surprise. And so it concluded, or you could say that it began, with a scenic evening drive some forty miles to Boring, Oregon.

Boring is what the kids might call it too, but behind the wheel Anthony was enjoying himself and able to ease his mind a while as his mother enjoyed the music, her favourite classic Fleetwood Mac songs, and the view - filled with quaint old houses and lush green.

'Do you know what Boring has going for it?' she asked on the way back as the dusk began to ease in. 'Nobody wants "boring". Nobody wants to be associated with "boring". They rave about the money and glamour, and Boring probably has it better than any of them.'