The following is an outline of how this society operates. The Perfect Beginning provides a slightly more comprehensive description of the universe.
* People are legal adults at 18 years of age.
* People usually live to about 2,000 years of age.
* The cultural norm has almost all legal adults living with their family of origin until they turn 200 years old.
* Young people between the ages of 18 and 200 are treated as and referred to as children when they choose to continue living with their parents.
* Young people between the ages of 18 and 200 often behave much as we would expect teenagers to behave here in our world. They are kept in a state of arrested emotional development.
* Young people between the ages of 18 and 200 years customarily consume "blockers" which prevent them from having sexual feelings or impulses.
* Some young people will begin to "date" around 160 yers of age and while they are expected to continue to take their blockers, some will surreptitiously stop taking them while a few will stop responding to them.
* Age and masculinity are revered in this world. Everybody looks up to their elders and few seriously question the patriarchy.
All characters in the story are over 18 years of age.
It is customary for those below the age of 200 to demonstrate their status by wearing clothing which signify to others that they are off limits. They would wear what we would think of as children's clothing. Remember, an 18 year old and a 1,900 year old would look exactly the same age, so children's clothes are very useful for signaling to those over 200 years to abstain from any romantic or sexual pursuit of another who was deemed of an inappropriate age.
Lastly, sex is not technically illegal for people between the ages of 18 and 200 years. It is considered profoundly taboo. Adult-children (18+) do have sex but it is kept very quiet. Some parents punish their children for engaging in this sinful pleasure and adult-children almost never tell-on one another in this regard, even those who might not like one another. Adult children live by a code and violation of said code subjects one to complete ostracization. Almost none experiment until they are well over 160 years old.
*
"I'm afraid, dear friend, you have my son."
Carol had never looked so undignified. It was terrible and so far beyond preposterous.
Of all people!
She burst out laughing.
*
Hellen had a Mother's duty to look after her boy. Peter was a mess and she knew there was a girl at the heart of it all.
Goodness gracious, what ever is the world coming to? How can a boy become so undone by just a girl?
Certainly Hellen knew how it was possible, she just could not imagine her own son becoming apart of anything so unusual.
*
For a short while, Hellen became a regular at the local, library, Girls on Top support group. Once or twice a week she attended and always sat next to Carol. They got so they saved seats for one another.
It all began with the Samantha Wagner meeting. It was at that meeting, while sitting next to one another, they each realized, independently, that they wanted for themselves what Samantha had created, a relationship with her son. That was to say, they knew they wanted a relationship with their own boys.
Certainly for Hellen, there was great disconcert in the realization. The desire had been there all along, but so sublimated was it, that in the moment of clarity, the moment Samantha called her pretty son, Johnny to the dais, Hellen's own desire, with absolute clarity and undeniable certainty, sprung from within.
Prior to this monumental meeting, the mere thought of Samantha Wagner suggested trouble. So upset was she by what she knew about Samantha, she almost skipped the meeting altogether. Samantha's reputation proceeded her. She was friends with Donna Lanza and knew Donna's daughter, Michelle. She was bit of a celebrity in this small circle. Looking like a movie star only added to her bigger than life, extravagant image.
Hellen's breath was taken from her with this realization and was not even aware that with sudden shock. she grasped the thigh of the woman next to her, her pretty acquaintance, Carol. At this point, the two women began a strange friendship. Each shared with the other just how impressed they were by Samantha. They inched their way ahead, but eventually disclosed just how much they related to her. Once out, they developed an instant affinity.
*
Once they'd broken the ice, Hellen and Carol grew closer. Often they'd meet for a coffee, take in a meeting and then go out to dinner. They navigated an odd sort of relationship in which they enjoyed sharing deeply personal thoughts and feelings about their past and present lives, while maintaining their anonymity. Neither knew the other's last name nor where the other lived.
Each woman strongly related to the principals laid out by their favorite author, Michele Lanza while each also felt the powerful draw of a what they thought of as a "Mother Knows Best" relationship with their respective boys. There was an incredible amount of excitement in the telling such that even Carol drew down her protective walls while sharing unfiltered emotion with her new friend Hellen.
Before long, Carol shared that she'd left her marriage and had begun dominating and sexualizing her son. Hellen was beyond captivated and felt deeply envious. She wanted to follow Carol's example.
It was after this very disclosure that the women first slept together. While perhaps more cosmopolitan than her new lover, Carol had never slept with a woman before. Hellen had done so several times when she attended a local, post 200 sex academy.
The young, lady students within the sex academy were strongly encouraged to sleep with one another as it was believed it was generally enjoyed by select men who might want to watch their girlfriends or future wives have sex with another pretty woman and or begin enjoying threesomes. Women, it was espoused, were designed by nature to satiate all of her man's sexual appetites. Ironically, Hellen found the most pleasurable and satisfying sex was with the other female students.
It was at this point Hellen began to question the current male dominant world order.
*
The women became very passionate with one another. Sadly it did not last.
*
Hellen was set to follow Carol's lead. She used Sleepy Head on Peter. Sleepy Head was sometimes referred to as a date rape drug, though she found that reference distasteful and inappropriate as what she was doing with Peter was ultimately, she was sure, for his own good.
Several times she slipped him the drug before joining him in his bedroom to begin his training. She began by handling him intimately while whispering in his ear about what kind of relationship the two would soon enjoy.
Abruptly, Hellen lost her nerve and aborted her plan. What she planned was, for a naturally conservative woman, too counter-culture and too daunting.
She carried on with confliction and regret. Her greatest pleasure and her deepest regret came from watching her beautiful boy play with his penis, a penis she felt in her bones should belong to her.
Though she projected as a warm, caring and gentle woman, Hellen was a strong woman and with her ultimate decision, turned her thoughts away from Carol. Despite her resolve, she found she could not completely get her former lover out of her mind. Every once and a while she'd find herself wondering about what could have been.
*
