It's the middle of July and the weather is as gorgeous as I look now. I'm lying flat on my back on a towel laid out on the freshly cut grass, wearing nothing but a skimpy red bathing suit to conceal my modesty from the neighbors' gaze. About ten feet away, my teenage daughters splash about in the inflatable pool with their older brother who's home for the summer holidays.
My husband is sitting in a deck chair a short distance away wearing swimming trunks and a baseball cap while taking care of our youngest child. Our baby son has diapers and a big sunhat on to keep the sunlight off his face while keeping his mop of blond hair under control. He stares with wide blue eyes at the sunny landscape of the backyard while his older siblings play.
Honestly, I would much rather be the one taking care of my baby, but I can't pass up the chance to sunbathe, so it's my husband's turn to babysit. My eyes are closed as I soak in the sun and feel the warmth of summer caressing my skin. The sound of my brood splashing and laughing a dozen yards away brings a smile to my lips. I can almost pretend that we're a normal family.
Just as that thought occurs to me, my firstborn child steps out of the pool, his nineteen-year-old body all toned muscle from head to toe and glistening with water from the pool. His dark-blond hair is drenched and plastered flat against his head even as he tries to brush several wet strands away from his forehead.
I'm so proud of the fact that such a sexy male specimen emerged from between my toned thighs that I almost fail to notice that he's approaching me. He stops a few feet away, towering over me and awkwardly opening his mouth as if he's about to say something.
My stomach forms a knot in my belly. Ever since he came home from his freshman year, we've been keeping our distance except for the occasional exchange of family platitudes. Both our eyes glance over at the reason for the awkwardness giggling as my husband tickles his belly. He's blissfully ignorant of the fact that the baby on his lap is actually his grandson, causing the knot in my stomach to tighten with guilt.
We've successfully kept up the pretense that nothing happened last summer for long enough, and I can't take it anymore. I stand up abruptly and pick up the towel as I turn to leave, waving to my husband so that he knows I'm heading inside. My son stands there looking confused, thinking that I'm avoiding him until I gesture for him to follow me.
The cool air inside the house is deliciously soothing, and I immediately untie the top and bottom pieces of my bathing suit, leaving me traipsing naked through the house. It's a perfect symbol of the schizophrenic feelings I've been struggling with for months: the shame of what we did and the fear of getting caught colliding with the desire to do it all over again.
My son follows behind, but when I glance over my shoulder, I can't read what he's thinking on his face. Is he eagerly anticipating another chance to sleep with his own mother, or are his footsteps being weighed down by his own misgivings? I wish I could tell.
"Trunks off, please," I instruct him, still wielding my maternal authority, "I don't want water dripping all over the carpet."
He falters in his tracks before doing as he's told, slipping his soaking wet trunks off and holding them in his hands, not knowing what to do with them. I toss my towel in his direction while still holding onto the pieces of my bathing suit, and he obligingly uses it to dry himself off, no doubt savoring the fact that mom was lying on the towel a moment earlier.
When he's more or less dry, I turn around and head upstairs, and he hurries after me with the towel and wet swimming trunks in hand. I want to slap myself for how reckless I'm now being getting naked with my son when the rest of my family might come inside and find us, but that's one reason I want the two of us upstairs as quickly as possible.
We make it to the bathroom, and I place the two pieces of my bathing suit on top of the hamper before taking my towel back from my son and laying it down on the floor while he locks the door behind us. He wrings his trunks over the sink to get rid of the excess water, then he leaves them there wondering if we're really going to do it again.
His erection is already standing six inches tall and proud, ready once again to make a mother out of the woman who gave birth to him. Time to pour a little cold water on his expectations.
"I need your help with something." I pick up a pair of scissors and give them to him.
"Uh, what are these for?" he asks as he accepts the scissors with a puzzled expression.
I lie down on the towel and spread my legs. "My bush is getting wild, so I need you to give me a trim." I love my little golden garden, but it's now so thick that my underwear can no longer contain it. "I bet it wasn't what you were expecting, but do you think you can manage that?"
"Um, sure, I can try." My son has a strange mix of disappointment and relief on his face as he kneels between my thighs with the scissors in hand.
I understand exactly what that mix of feelings is like because I've been struggling with it myself ever since he returned home for the summer. Ever since giving birth -- and when I was pregnant -- our mother-son relationship has ceased to be normal. How can we ever go back to normal when I cheated on his father with him and gave birth to his son, who's also his half-brother?
My son has the bright idea of getting a comb and splashing some water on my pubic hair before combing it carefully and snipping away the hair one clump at a time. I trust him implicitly to give me a perfect trim, even as I try not to think about the lines that we crossed last summer. That's hard to do when the proof of what we did suckles regularly at my breast.
My son turns out to be a masterful barber, and before long, my golden jungle has been cut back to a more manageable garden of blonde curls. My own golden hair is spread out behind me like a shimmering web, and I'm suddenly aware that my son is drinking in my naked form, from my full breasts, across my belly, and down to my newly trimmed crotch.
"Shall I...shave it off?" he suggests, gazing down at the open invitation before him.
"Absolutely not." I meet his gaze as I respond. "My bush is a garden that needs pruning, not mowing down to the skin like a lawn."
My son puts the scissors back where I retrieved them from before kneeling down again in front of me. The job is done, and we're now confronted with the question of what to do next.
His one-eyed snake is pointing straight ahead, and I'm just lying there wide open and ready to receive him once again. It's a line we haven't dared to cross since the previous summer, and the consequences may yet catch up to us again.
The simmering sexual tension brewing between us is so intense that part of me sincerely wants him to ravish me right here. I imagine my son, unable to restrain himself any longer, pouncing on me, pinning my struggling body down as he plunges his penis back inside me, thrusting like a rapist with nothing to lose as he strives to put another baby in his beautiful mother's belly.
