The Forbidden Shore

Hilda nodded her assent cheerily, flashing me a big smile.

"You're a good son, Peter. Your Mom needs a man she can count on to take care of her, and you fill the bill nicely."

I reddened and ducked my head and Mom took the opportunity to kiss my cheek again, making me blush even more.

"My knight in shining oilskins," she teased, squeezing my thigh with a slight caress.

Suddenly, I had reason to be even more embarrassed - I started to get an erection, my cock slowly expanding and burrowing down my pants leg! I was initially mortified that Mom's touch had provoked such a reaction, and at first I dismissed the discomfiture out of hand, reasoning that six weeks on the high seas can do that to a fella.

That helped me cope somewhat, but somewhere else, in a particularly deep and dark corner of my subconscious, I could hear another small voice whispering. That whisper floated just above the mental flotsam and jetsam created by my arousal, but for all of the softness of that little voice, its message ended up echoing in my head as loudly as a shout.

I welcomed Mom's touch. It made me feel good.

It made me want to touch her too, in ways no son should ever contemplate.

I could be as consciously and appropriately upset as I wanted, that those thoughts were there, but the real truth was finally rearing its monstrous head, rising to the front of my mind for the first time after close to a decade of lurking. Those thoughts were proving difficult to deny, very difficult indeed.

I didn't love my Mom, I was starting to love her. Like a man, like an ardent suitor. And suddenly, I wanted her, wanted her with a heated passion and desperate desire that threatened to sear away my entire conscience in a flash, leaving behind the scorched remnant of my soul, like the charred silhouette of a Hiroshima body shadow.

I was in trouble; deep, dark, no-shit trouble and I knew that these new feelings that had surfaced could not be tucked away and forgotten again. Worse yet, I had to admit that a growing part of me didn't want those feelings to go away. It was as though I had taken a seed long-kept in storage and put it in warm, welcoming earth. It was going to germinate, going to sprout and grow, and there was nothing I could do to stop that from happening...no.

"No it's not!" I thought, gritting mental teeth. "This is my Mom. Not going to happen. Can't happen. Out of the question. Slam that idea in a trunk, triple lock it and throw it in the darkest, deepest hole in my brain. Never again. No thoughts like that ever again," I ordered myself silently.

While those ideas ricocheted around my head like a stray bullet, I had a more immediate problem.

Mom's hand was still on my thigh, lightly sliding over the rough fabric of my Levis. With the pattern her fingers were tracing, it wouldn't be long before she encountered my twitching divining rod. I'd be busted for good, my trip home over before it even started. I held my breath, praying that she'd stop soon, like anytime, like right now, like ten seconds ago...

Dear God, it's happened, fingertips right over my glans, my hardness so obviously there, with undeniable, lead-pipe certainty. But wait, no pause, no apparent recognition on her part. Maybe the slightest, barest slowing in her movements, but maybe not?

She didn't notice?

Impossible!

I'm no porn star, sporting a gigantic, throbbing Kielbasa, but I've been told by more than one lady that my Maker was generous to me, providing that which would give any lover undeniable pleasure. There is no way that Mom could not recognize the obvious pulsatile contour in my pants leg, no way!

There, now, finally! She's stopped, simply resting her hand on my leg. No pulling back as though scalded, no sharp, shocked intake of breath, praise God. Fearfully, I darted a quick look to her face. Thank you Jesus, she's not looking at me, no embarrassed blush on her cheeks.

I heaved a sigh of relief and hazarded one more glance on her features. It was then I saw an expression on her face that I'd never encountered before. Her eyelids were slightly drooped and hooded, staring as though not seeing what was in front of her. And her lips, her moist lips. Where did that enigmatic, subtle, half-smile come from?

Of course, I actually had seen that expression before, but never on my mother's face. I simply didn't recognize it for what it was.

It was the look a woman has, just before she closes her eyes to receive a lover's kiss.

That look lasted for perhaps five seconds and was then gone, dispersed like an evanescent morning mist.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts, but I couldn't escape the surreal feeling of what had just happened. I'd fallen down some twisted rabbit hole of longing and lust, ending up not in Wonderland, but some strange, steaming realm ruled by desperate, taboo desires and forbidden longings -a place my mind had never traveled to ever before, a place which I simply didn't comprehend.

I was snatched back to the here and now with a jolt, as Hilda pulled into the parking lot at First National, announcing, "Stop number one, Peter."

Mumbling a semi-coherent thanks, I half stumbled from the car, trying to surreptitiously adjust myself as I made my way to the entrance. Once inside, it took me a full two minutes to get my thoughts back on track. I found the bank manager, explaining that I wanted close out my old account and open a new joint account, one in my name and Mom's.

My explanation was that Dad was so busy that he often forgot to send money to Mom, being out so much. I'm not sure if he bought my story, but he did as I asked, after lecturing how it might complicate our family's tax situation. I nodded politely and thanked him for his advice, but remained firm. I transferred over my old balance and took out about three thousand in cash. That left about thirty three thousand in the new checking. Well satisfied, I took a signature card from the teller, stating that I'd be back the next day with Mom's autograph. Grabbing up my complimentary counter checks, I hit the door.

As we headed back up Seward Highway, traffic was light, so we found ourselves at Alyeska Auto Salvage and Repair in just a few minutes. I tracked Bert down in the back of the shop and explained the situation to him.

Bert's a fair man, truly one of the good guys. He didn't hold Dad's previous outburst against Mom or me, but he was kindly firm, stating that the repair would be a cash-only deal, with a hundred dollar deposit.

I took him aside and peeled three Ben Franklins off my bankroll, explaining that I'd take it as a personal favor if he'd send someone up to the house and tow Mom's beat up F-150 down to the shop today. I told him to give the old truck a thorough going-over and let me know what was needed to get it ticking properly and that any bills were to come directly to me before I went back to Dutch Harbor.

Bert gripped my arm and shook my hand, saying, "Chris is a nice lady and deserves better. It's good that her son is stepping up to take care of her."

Little did he know how I was now starting to think of other ways to "take care" of her, how willing I was to truly be the man she could trust and rely on for all things, for everything.

Back in the car, I put my arm around Mom's shoulders and kissed the top of her head. She smiled and snuggled up against me, saying, "I'm so glad you're home, Petey. I've missed my handsome young man, missed him so much."

"I wish I could stay longer, Mom, I really do," I sighed.

For the remaining ten minutes we spent on the highway, I mentally composed the speech I was going to give her when we got home, explaining how the new household finances were going to work. I gamed out several different ways of saying what needed to be said, but in the end, I decided to be direct and simple. By then, we had arrived at Chez Heimdahl.

Our house is a no-frills, pre-fab log home, done in the faux-alpine, rustic style that is quite prevalent in this area. For all its austere simplicity, you wouldn't think it belonged to a man who owned his own fishing vessels, but that's how Dad operates. Most of the money goes back into the Anna Katarina or his own accounts.

Sure, running a crab boat is a high overhead proposition, but I know how much fuel costs, how much we spend on insurance, harbor fees, provisioning and maintenance. I have a pretty damn good idea how much money Dad has in his business accounts. There's plenty after operating expenses but even so it still only finds its way to Mom in miserly dribs and drabs.

The house is a well insulated, but small split-level, with only three bedrooms and a detached garage. We heat primarily with a wood stove, just occasionally using an oil furnace during the coldest days of winter. The kitchen is rather cramped, with the necessity of keeping the washer and dryer there, but it feels cozy and simple. The appliances are base-model stuff from Sears, but do the job. That's a sore point with me, because I know how much Mom loves cooking and I know for a fact that Dad could afford something better for her if he wanted to. For all that, it's still my favorite room in the house, simply because Mom is usually there.

It was at the kitchen table where she put my Band-Aids on, helped me with every subject from spelling to trigonometry, where she commiserated with me over bad dates and romances gone awry and where she shared with me her passion for Norse history and mythology. It was there, at five years old, in Mom's lap, that I learned of Midgard Serpent, Yggdrasil, the Bifrost Bridge and the worlds of the Aesir, Vanir and Jotnar, among others. She even taught me a little of the prose and poetic Eddas.

While I was getting settled into my room, I heard Mom call to me from the front door. When I got there, she was looking at me severely, hands on hips.

"What's all this, Petey? Dave from Bert's shop is here to tow the pickup. Did you go and do something behind my back? Did you?" she demanded.

"Guilty as charged, Mom," I smiled easily. "But before you go off the deep end, just hear me out. I don't want to be back out on the water next week, wondering about how you're doing. You need a working car. Hilda's not going to always be around to help out, bless her heart. What if there's an emergency? I can't do my job well if I'm worrying about you being stuck up here, so yes, I worked out an arrangement with Bert."

"You know how I feel about you spending your money on things that Gunnar should take care of, Peter. I won't have it, I just won't. I have my pride, you know. I'm not going to be supported by my own son at my age, dammit." Her words snapped as she voiced her displeasure, but I could tell her heart wasn't in it.

Tossing the keys for the Ford around Mom and through the doorway to Dave, I soothed, "I'm flush, Mom. Anyway, it's a done deal. You can pay me back later if you want. My interest rates are reasonable," I gently teased.

"You're terrible, Peter. I didn't raise you to be throwing away your money like that," she scolded, trying to be severe, but ultimately failing, a gentle smile eventually blooming on her lips.

I closed the front door and watched Dave from the living room window as he hooked the truck up for towing. In a couple minutes he was gone and the first of my tasks was well on its way to completion. Mom came to my side and hugged me again.

"Thank you for looking after your old Mom, Petey," she whispered softly.

"Whoa, just hold on a second there, lady. Who are you saying is old? You're what, twenty-nine, right?"

"You are so bad, Peter! You know exactly how old I am! But thanks anyway," she laughed easily, arm encircling my waist. "Shameless flattery will almost always get you in my good books."

"Almost always?" I quipped. "Guess I'll have to work on my delivery, then."

"Shut up, you store dirittung," Mom retorted.

My norsk vocabulary was pretty limited, but I recognized the term. "Big brat?" I asked incredulously. "Now you've gone and hurt my feelings, kjare mor," I pretended to sniff.

"Oh, just shut up, you big lug."

"Ja, mamma."

Chapter 4

On that day, at forty-five years of age, she was and remained gorgeous in my eyes. Still lithe and trim, I doubted she weighed more than a hundred fifteen pounds. Of course, being my mother she had always been beautiful, but as I regarded her in the cool, fading dregs of daylight in the living room, I took stock of her looks in way I never had before.

For the first time I could consciously remember, I stepped outside myself and saw her as a woman, a sensation that was at once exhilarating and extremely disturbing. Here I was, checking my Mom out, eyes gliding over her whole body, taking everything in, from her hair to her toes and in between. It was especially my appreciation of the "in between" that was truly unsettling.

As I said before, she is slender. Her facial features are regular, with high, gorgeously sculpted cheekbones and an aquiline nose bracketed by deep, widely spaced gray eyes. Her hair is lustrous and thick, raven black in color, shot through with a few random threads of gray, cascading with slight curling to the top of her shoulders.

There were a few very fine crow's feet around her eyes and a couple of worry lines in her forehead. She looks at least five years younger than her age, and in the soft, wan light of advancing twilight, those characteristics were further softened, making her seem even younger. I always thought that if you set a head and shoulder picture of Mom side by side with Cate Blanchett, you'd think you had found that actress' dark, elder sister. But that's just my very biased opinion.

As I appraised her figure, it seemed to me that her breasts were probably perfect, generous single handfuls and rode proudly on her chest, without any evident sag. Her stomach had the slightest of gentle swellings as it smoothly coursed down to the juncture of her thighs, an inevitable consequence of childbearing. Her hips appeared surprisingly slender, but not boyish, gently curving and just prominent enough in the right places to let you know that you were looking at a real woman, someone who had brought three children into the world. As I stared at the juncture of her thighs, I actually began to salivate, God help me.

While I took in these newly appreciated sights, I struggled within myself to contain the rising tide of desire I was feeling for this very attractive woman. I was holding on for dear life to the last shreds of my filial affection, when I considered her bottom. At that moment, it was all over - I was a goner.

Magda Christine, my confidant, my nurse, my loyal supporter, my friend, my muse, my beloved mother, had a marvelous, simply stunning ass. It was iconic, sculpted by the gods, a true monument. It filled out her jeans superbly, full and womanly, but without any obvious sag. It was mobile, perfectly contoured, wondrously pear-shaped. It was magnificent and suddenly, I was now lost, irrevocably set adrift on a sea of love and lust.

I was rudderless and the compass of my conscience had broken.

Have you ever seen how a fault line moves? It creeps along, millimeter by millimeter, year after mundane year. Small cracks appear in the roadways, walls and buildings that are astride it, but things look only subtly different and then only to the trained eye.

Then one day, it ruptures without warning, seemingly for no clear reason. Suddenly, it lurches feet or yards instead of fractions of inches, shearing, rising or falling, and with that displacement, all those familiar, ordinary structures, those comforting, secure landmarks of our daily existence which were laid across its path are turned into so much rubble, the landscape altered forever.

That's what I felt like in that moment in the living room. In the space of a few minutes, I went from having a vague, moderately inappropriate crush on my mother to mad, irredeemable obsession.

I wanted her, wanted her more than anything in my entire life. Not just to bed, but to have, to hold and to comfort.

I finally realized, in a seemingly sudden fashion, that I was undeniably and completely head over heels in love with the one woman in the whole world I could not possibly have.

Mom spoke then, breaking the thrall of my revelation. She must have mistaken my vacant, poleaxed expression as fatigue, because she drew me to her.

Slipping her arm around my waist, she pulled me towards the kitchen. "Come with me, Petey. Let your mom get you a nice, hot cup of coffee. You look like you could use it."

Tightening her arm further, she firmly steered me into the kitchen and sat me down at the table, her hand briefly caressing the back of my neck before she turned to the counter. I barely suppressed a shiver at her brief contact. Suddenly the room felt stiflingly hot and my heart was racing uncontrollably.

Turning from the coffee pot, a mug in each hand, she gave me the Mother Look, exclaiming, "Peter! You look flushed! Are you coming down with something?"

Setting our drinks down hurriedly on the table, she put her hand on my forehead, murmuring, "You seem a bit warm, honey. I'll get you some Tylenol."

As she started to leave, I reached out and put my hand on her hip, halting her rush to the medicine cabinet. "I'm okay, Mom, really. I just need to peel off a layer or two here."

"You can't fool your Mother, Peter," she scolded. "You're definitely running warm. You better not be trying to sneak a case of the flu by me! And right before Christmas, too!"

"Honest, Mom, I feel just fine," I protested.

"Anyhow, if I'm running hot, it's from being around you," I teased.

"Peter! There you go flirting with me again, you bad young man!" Mom blushed, eyes downcast. "You're embarrassing me," she said quietly.

Sensing I'd gone a bit too far, I stood up and drew her in for a hug, kissing the top of her head. She smelled of strawberry shampoo and Dove soap. "Sorry, Mom. Just having a little fun, that's all."

She relaxed, snuggling in against me, a small sigh escaping her lips. Without any conscious thought, my hands seemed to drift from her back down to her hips, pulling her closer. I found my face slowly dropping past the top of her head. It seemed as though I was powerless to prevent the very inappropriate kiss I was about to deliver to the nape of her neck.

I was no longer in control of my actions.

It didn't help in the least that Mom also seemed to be losing herself in the moment as well. While my lips were inexorably dropping towards her neck, she seemed to be molding herself against me and I sensed the light pressure of her pelvis against mine. I was about a second and a half from The Kiss That Must Not Happen when Mom seemed to come to herself. With a slight shudder, she sighed and pulled away.

I thought I sensed the merest trace of reluctance on her part.

At that moment, the microwave dinged, Mom's coffee now reheated. When she sat down with me, I decided now was as good a time as any to explain my earlier business at the bank. I reached into the pocket of my fleece vest and put the counter checks on the table, sliding them over to Mom.

"What's all this, Peter?" she asked, eyes narrowing with suspicion.

"It's our new bank account, Mom," I replied, holding her eyes with mine.

"What do you mean, OUR account?" she exclaimed.

"Just that, kjaere mor," I soothed. I always used my limited vocabulary of Norsk when I needed to sweet talk her.

"Peter, you are so full of dritt!" she spat, slapping her hand on the table. "Why did you do this?" Even then, I could tell her sharpness was more in exasperation than real anger.

I took her hand in mine, gently running my thumb over her knuckles. "Because I don't want to worry about you, Mom," I explained, softly. "I'm fed up with the way Dad treats you and I'm not going to let it happen any more. Period."