The Good Mother

At home, after the last trip, there had been her customary distance. A pretend amnesia. This time, as we turned into the narrow gravel driveway at the farmhouse, I paid more attention to the change as it began. A comfortable feeling settling over her, a mellowing with each farm chore we finished. By night, behind the attic door, bolt lock in place, my "other" mother emerged. The mother known to no one but me.

On the bed, she spread the oil in lingering slow strokes along those slender legs. Fingers and palms working their way up from feet to ankle, to her toned calves and knees, all the way to her thighs, smoothing in the oil to the very edge of her panties. Her legs open to me. Those thighs, by then, seemed splendid.

She was absorbed in it. I tried paying it no mind, resorting to glances every few seconds. But she was letting me look, giving an unhindered view. No effort to hide that indentation, her slit concealed only by a single layer of white satin. Underneath, her nether lips swollen, puffed out, pushing out the panties just a little, further delineating her sex. I could see again that small pattern of pubic hair underneath. A little wetness beginning in the fabric's gusset. She noticed I was looking.

"I like being here," she said. No makeup at that point, her hair disheveled from the hard work, loose strands gathered and pushed behind her ears. My thoughts turned inward as I looked on. She seemed more in tune with herself. And aware of the raw sexual grip she held over me.

Maybe we are never meant to know our own mothers. I mean to really know them. As people. As women. We see what they allow us to see. Know what they choose to let us know. Nothing more. But in that moment I was desperate to know everything. Her private history. Each perverse desire. Every impure thought. I sensed that she was opening the door to let me in, if ever so slowly. But I remember thinking that I might be totally wrong.

The room's lamplight flickered. Off, then back on. Off and on again. Finally off, throwing the attic into a sudden dark grayness as the night closed in. I felt my way down the attic stairs, then to the first floor where my grandmother had an oil lamp waiting for me. All the electric power was off.

"It's most certain there's a storm gathering. That's why we lose the power," she said. "Always happens. It'll be a hard rain. And soon."

The oil lamp cast dim light and dark shadows around us back in the attic. An unexpected cool breeze sent my mother and I to the window. We stared out.

"Gramma was right," I said.

Above the shadowy rows of soybeans and tobacco stalks, a hurried wind set in motion the storm. Distant tree tops swaying in unison, shutters suddenly rattling against the house, gusts lashing at the roof shingles. Black clouds rolling low overhead, churning, gaining speed, bearing down on the farm. Thunder building, closing in.

Side by side we stood at the window, watching lightning arrive. Her eyes moved slowly from me to the storm. We skipped the wine glasses and swigged our usual bottle right there, standing up, silently passing it to each other. Emptying it quicker than we should have. Maybe that's what gave my mother more courage.

"This window has such memories for me," she said.

"How so?"

"Those fantasies I told you about, they didn't stop with high school," she said. "When I was in college, I would come home on weekends. Every night before bed I stood at this window. Looking out, making believe that some handsome young man would see me from the road, stop his car and climb through the window to be with me. Every small breeze, I fantasized, was announcing his arrival."

"And I would try to tempt him from his car. Do you know what I would do?"

I had no idea where this was going.

In a slow, careful movement, as if resigned to do so, she began opening the top button of her pajamas. Then working her way down, one button nervously after another. Her head bent down, eyes watching her hands finger the buttons. Nipples hard under the fabric. The pajama shirt parted, began to slip open.

"We think we know someone, but we don't," she said. "None of us really know each other."

She let the pajama top drop to the floor. We were still side by side, looking out the window. I didn't move. Too afraid to look at her straight on. She was almost naked.

"This is the only place, this room, where I've ever been able to be myself," she said, looking back out the window, not at me.

"I would stand here, in front of the window, showing my breasts to anyone who might pass by on the road, pretending it would be enough to entice that young man to come in," she said, watching the rain come closer. "I wondered if anyone could see. No one ever did, of course. Every night was the same."

My peripheral vision in the lantern-lit room was good enough to see that her skin all over was pale. But for those breasts. They were whiter than white. Sloping slightly down and out to the tips. My fingers would have slid off had I been allowed to touch them. The areolas dark brown, sizable. Each nipple thick, protruding, as if they had been made for a bustier, fleshier woman. I was seeing my mother's breasts. For the very first time.

I could hear my own breathing deepen. Hers too. Those breasts rising a little and falling with each inhale, each exhale. She looked down at them, as if comparing one to the other. Raising her hands, she held each in her palms, fingered the nipples. She turned to me, then I to her. She lowered her hands and let me look. I tried to focus on her face, but my eyes kept falling. I was no more than a foot from the tips with no idea what she wanted from me.

"Are they what you thought they would be?" she asked. "They were perkier back then, of course. With more life to them. And this one's a little larger than that one. Just a little."

Disappointment was in her voice. She waited for a word from me. I couldn't think fast enough to answer.

She looked down once more, letting her fingers glide over her nipples again, freely feeling their hardness. She was exciting herself and inviting me to watch.

"I guess most guys don't care what their own mother's breasts look like," she said. "Especially if they're not all that large." She was out on a limb, vulnerable. Not a place she was used to being.

"I like the way they look," I stammered. It seemed such a foolish thing to say.

"Did you ever want to see them before?"

"Would you have let me?" I asked.

"Probably not," she said.

"Then why now?"

"You let me watch you last time we were here. I wondered if you'd want to see me," she said. "Maybe I was wrong."

"You're not wrong," I said too quickly, before she could finish her words.

A slight mist sifted through the window screen. After a silent moment, she picked up her story of those nights in the bedroom.

"I thought about the imaginary man a lot. He would climb through the window and sit in that chair, waiting, wanting to watch. So I would take off my panties too, lie on the bed and spread my legs wide, exposing me in the most indecent ways. And I would touch myself, pretending that I was letting him see me do that. It was humiliating. But I couldn't stop. The next morning, I'd eat breakfast with my mother, wondering how repulsed she would be if she knew."

Still at the window, she raised her face, looking at the ceiling, looking anywhere but at me.

"This is your mother, Michael. Your real mother. Why I am telling you all of this, I don't know? I've never told a soul. It's the most shameful secret I have. I wish I was normal like everyone else." Her voice was unsure, but she kept going.

"Would you be interested in sitting in the chair?" she asked.

I could sense she was shaking, more vulnerable that she had ever been with me. A rawness to her emotions. I could see that in her eyes. Readying herself for rejection and humiliation.

But when our eyes connected, dead on to each other, she knew. For the first time that night, it felt like a moment of pure honesty between us. She needed no answer from my lips. She saw it in my eyes. She turned from the window, moved to the edge of the bed, her back to me. Slipping her fingers under the waistband, she pushed her panties down to the floor, no hesitation. Naked with her back to me.

Picking up her panties, she looked at the crotch, held it to her nose. "I'm so wet," she said. "It's always been that way. Gooey. I wonder if Mother ever noticed when she did the wash?"

I couldn't see the moisture, but I had no doubt it was there. I stared at that dark divide between her buttocks, watched as she lifted her knee to the mattress to lie down. Her legs parting a little as she did, the lips of her pussy coming into view, from behind. They were slighter, less pronounced than I expected. Barely there. But enough to take my breath away.

She lay naked on her back, head on the pillow, knees raised, feet flat on the bed, legs open obscenely wide, showing me her pussy, all of it. Wanting me to see it up close. She moved her arms back, behind her head, hands grabbing the headboard, as if they were shackled to it.

"Are you afraid?" she asked.

"A little," I said. "To be honest, yes."

"So am I," she said.

I was about to see something that sons aren't supposed to see. There was no will left in me to fight the dark angel in me. I let the queasiness take over as I watched the overwhelming vision of her. Naked, silken. Lying vulgarly open. Her long neck stretched back, arms lean, a neat little patch of hair. My first real look at her pubic hair. Even her feet seemed graceful.

So there I sat, pulling the chair right up to the end of the mattress, just watching. I could tell that her opening was a little wrinkled. Soft and delicate. Moist and slick, even in the half-light of the oil lamp. I was her substitute for the imaginary man in the window. He had been her fantasy, morphing eventually into an unfulfilled obsession. She was accepting her fate. No choice but to do it this way. An act of desperation, as if her whole life was fading fast. Now there was left only me, her son, to act it out with her.

Hard rain reached the fields. Poured onto the house, pounding against the clapboards in waves. We paid no attention. All I wanted was to touch her perfect body.

I was amazed at her ministrations to those nipples. An index finger on each, gliding over the surface, around the hardness, over the areolas. As if she were memorizing the texture of them. Then flicking them, tweaking them. Pushing them in, letting them pop out on their own. Shivers ran down her sides from the effect. She had done this hundreds of times. No one could know her body better than herself. I could tell. Hands expertly caressing her stomach, then back up to her nipples, then back down, lower. Repeating the movement, floating lower and lower each time. Now just above the soft triangle of hair.

We had crossed a barrier that almost no mother and son ever cross.

"Do you want me to stop watching?" I asked.

"No. I like it too much." She lifted her head to look at me.

"I like to do it as much as you do," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"Make myself come. Every day, all of my life. I can't seem to help myself. I've never let anyone know."

"I've never let anyone know either," I said. "But we all do it."

"Mine's not nearly as exciting as what you do," she said. "You shoot out so far."

Easing her head back on the pillow, she closed her eyes and let the long middle finger of her right hand slide into the moisture at her vulva. Those lips were glistening, the wrinkle soaked, her thighs fidgeting. Up and down with her finger, sliding it along the crease. Slow each time, lovingly touching above, right at her clit, before moving the finger back down. Then the finger pressed on the wrinkled crevice, disappearing inside her pussy. Past the knuckle, all the way in, as deep as her long finger would go. Staying inside as she pressed her palm onto her mons.

"Can I see you again?" she asked. "Can I see it?"

I stood at the foot of the bed and slipped my boxers down. She lifted her head, opened her eyes and looked at my erection. As ridiculous as it probably looked, I was sickeningly proud to stand there with such a hard prick. Thick, swollen, veiny. Stretched already to its limit and swaying. Just from the sight of her nakedness. We watched each other in the dim light. I stroked slowly, guessing it's what she wanted to see. She slid her finger in and out of her pussy even slower. Then slid her index finger in too. I believe she liked the two of us doing it together. I stroked back and forth, slow but non-stop.

Her other hand's middle finger moved to her clit. Chin down, watching her own fingers at work, a few whimpers at first, turning into panting. Fingers faster until they were strumming her clit. Then faster, almost a blur. Then slowing. Now faster. Throwing her head back, chin up. Surging to a crescendo. Heavy breathing, her stomach convulsing, rippling, flattening out, rippling again. For a full minute she was in another world altogether.

Then it was over. Only heavy breathing left in her. Her hands, those long fingers, moved up, began caressing her neck, her breasts, her stomach. Slower now. Then down to her vulva again. It wasn't over. Touching herself again. But slower this time, two fingers inside, and her eyes on me. Eyes watching as I looked at her wet pussy.

"You can touch it if you like," she said, her voice now heavier, throatier, husky, as if from deep inside her. From another woman. The woman of her fantasies.

I crawled onto the bed on my knees, my prick swaying. She looked not at me. But at it. She was watching my dick. Never have I liked my own hard prick as much as in that moment. I was proud of its length, its girth, the heaviness in my swaying balls. I knelt beside her, right at her waist, let my hand caress the outside of her thigh. I could not take my eyes off her triangle of hair. I noticed some of it was in curls. I leaned closer. The head of my prick brushed against her hip. Just for a second. More rain, soaking the fields. Mist coming through the window, darkness surrounding us. And me sifting my fingers through her pubic hair. Silky to the touch. A slight shudder from her. She pulled her own fingers out of her pussy. "No. Don't," I said and guided them back in. I used just the tips of my own fingers to feel the soft outer lips, slender inner ones. My fingers overlapping her own. Each hand caressing the other as we both tended to her glorious opening. Though the storm had cooled the room, I was overcome with heat and desire.

"Do you like looking at my pussy, Michael?"

"I can't find the words," I said.

She opened her legs even more. Around and around, slowly, my fingers traced along her labia, smoothing her wetness as I went. Her fingers kept up the in-and-out. Fingers of her other hand atop her clit. The smell of sex filling the room.

"I love being naked," she whispered. I'm not sure those words were meant for me, or for anyone other than herself.

She pulled the two fingers out of her pussy, moved them down, slipped the tip of her middle finger to the opening in her ass. Pushing inside just a little, catching her breath and jerking up off the bed. Then coming back down. The noise of the rain much louder.

"You like doing that?" I whispered.

"Is it too nasty?" she asked.

"No. I just never imagined."

Soft guttural sounds from her as her finger moved in and out of her anus. She slowed her motions.

"Get me the bottle," she said.

"What?"

"The wine bottle."

It took me a moment, as I picked it up, to realize her intentions. Its neck was longer than most wine bottles. More like a champagne bottle.

Holding the fat part of the bottle in her hand, she put the top of the bottle's neck right at her vulva's opening, eased it in. Slowly the long neck disappeared. All the way in her vagina. She began drawing it back out, then back in, starting a slow rhythm with her other hand's finger still in her ass. Each time she pulled out the bottle, the neck was wetter and wetter.

"Let me," I said.

I clutched the bottle, she let go. I began moving it in and out, at her same rhythm. Disbelief at what I was doing. Pushing all the way in, pulling almost all the way out, to the tip. Then back in. Over and over. One of her fingers rubbing her clit, the other still in her ass. My eyes glued to the sight of it all.

"Oh, God, it feels so good," she said, her head moving from side to side, her voice hoarse and deep.

Both of us sweating, her stomach rippling again. Breathing faster. She reached a cliff, no longer any self-control, gasping. Her back raising, arching. Everything in her tightening. Anus muscles, muscles in her pussy, all clamping down on the wine bottle.

Her mouth opened wide, closed quickly. She grit her teeth and groaned, surrendering to waves of spasms and manic jerking, one after another, then another, until one last tight squeeze. Then free fall. A giant release, a rushing flood. Her vulva pulsing and pulsing. Her body collapsing. Thighs trembling. She raised both arms to her chest, each hand cupping a breast. She squeezed them, harder than I would have. Then a calmness as she tumbled back into reality. The bottle slipped itself out of her pussy and lay between her legs, wetness on its neck.

I wanted to taste her. Wanted to feel her soft labia around my prick. My hard-on aching for that sublime smell of her. I shifted around, got between her legs, lowered my face to within inches of her vulva. My tongue reached out, lightly touching the liquid leaking from inside her.

I could hear a quick intake of her breath. Then my tongue making a slow, feathery lick over her clit. She groaned hard. I did it again. Flicking my tongue back and forth over it. Pausing a few seconds. The repeating. Barely touching it, soft as I could. My head suddenly trapped between her thighs that had clamped together, tight and quivering as another climax approached. Her hand quickly grabbed my hair and pulled. My lips and nose were crushed against her wet opening as she came on my face, liquid trickling over my chin, puddling on the bed sheets. It took time for her breathing to slow.

She sat up slowly, hands by her side, face lowered, as if she had just awakened from sleep. I guess I could have pushed her down and shoved my dick inside her. I didn't. I could tell there was no invitation from her for that to happen. Besides, could she even take another orgasm?

Trouble was, as I lifted my face from between her thighs, I was myself at the point of no return. I rose to my knees, held my prick out and with the first stroke of the hand I came, shooting out my sperm uncontrollably. An accident. Three quick hard spurts, splashing on her neck, her arm, one of her nipples. She was only two feet from me.

Before I could apologize, she used her finger to wipe the come from her nipple, then brought it to her mouth. She sucked in my semen, swallowing it, then leaned back a little, arms down, resting on her hands.

"That's how nasty your mother can be," she said.

Pangs of guilt followed in the dark hours after. I lay beside her in bed doing the math. The number of mothers involved with their grown sons had to be infinitesimally small. Yet in a country with millions of people, that still meant a few dozen mothers and sons might have been at that very moment having similar sex in bedrooms and hideaways. Maybe hundreds. I was attempting to justify this, to convince myself. Or were we the only ones?

* * *

Dawn found Mother standing, facing the wardrobe's tall, narrow mirror, her back to me on the bed. The attic room still grayish and white. Morning sun not yet peeking over the treetops. Everything misty and damp from the storm. I breathed in the fresh aroma of the farm after a cleansing rain. No stirring in the rest of the house. Everything still at rest. Too early yet.