Prologue
Tears of pride streamed down Anna's cheeks as she sat in the Great Hall of the University, watching her son Michael receive his degree.
Her thoughts ran back over the years, the struggle it had been. She had provided an excellent home. He had gone to the best schools. She had bought his first car. He had even accompanied her weekly to the rather pretentious church she attended. Michael had wanted for nothing. It all might have been otherwise.
She was a young teenager when she became pregnant to the choirmaster of the local church. Her puritan parents had all but thrown her out of the house, and the choirmaster's violation somehow was hushed up and overlooked.
Anna had been forced to enter what was called "A Girl's Shelter," run by the local Council. Here she mingled with other girls destined to become single parents.
She had refused to give her baby up for adoption, and for a few years, she had lived in a series of institutions and cheap lodgings. Then when she was in the vale of dark despair things changed for her. The outcome of that change culminated for her in this day in the University Great Hall.
Her one thought now was that she could begin to relax, to reduce and finally cease her efforts on Michael's behalf.
Horror.
Michael climbed the rather squalid stairs to the flat. He felt rather disappointed as he had thought it would be rather attractive and alluring, like he'd seen in films and videos.
A group of his friends had decided to help him celebrate his graduation. They had found an advertisement for "Zena's Garden of Love, " and made a booking for him. Now, as he approached the door to the flat, there was no sign of any garden, and he began to have serious doubts about there being any love.
He rang the bell, and a voice from a speaker asked, "Who is it?" He gave his name; there was a click, and the door opened slightly. He pushed it fully open and walked in.
What he saw did not inspire either confidence or arouse sexual appetite.
It was a sparsely furnished room dominated by a large bed. It was clean in a carbolic, antiseptic sort of way, and it was clearly set up for one purpose only.
From a side room came the sound of running water and a muffled voice called out, "Make yourself at home, darling, I'll be with you in a moment. Get your clothes off if you like."
Michael, not at all sure he wanted to go through with this "treat," Began to slowly undress. A voice behind him said, "Hello darling, I'm Zena."
Michael turned and froze. Before him stood a woman, wearing black stockings held up by a suspender belt, and black lace panties and bra.
"Oh my God, Michael!"
Michael could barely speak, but stammered out, "Mu…mu…moth…"
The woman had turned a ghastly grey, and Michael felt the blood drain from his face. Bile rose up into his throat, choking him.
They stood facing each other, paralysed by horror.
Michael broke the stalemate with cry, and clasping the clothes he had taken off he turned and fled down the stairs. Reaching the street below, he leaned against a wall and vomited as if he would never stop.
Zena, or more accurately, Anna, stood for a few moments, numbed. Then she fell to the floor in a dead faint.
Despair.
How she got home that night Anna never afterwards could tell. She moved in a world of unreality – the world of nightmares. All these years she had hidden from her son how she got the money to provide for him, and now, by sheer evil chance, he had seen.
She dreaded what might await her, but knew it had to be faced sometime. On arriving at the house, she entered the living room, and there, painted on one wall with red paint were words a foot high, "My mother is a filthy whore."
Michael had gone. He had packed a few clothes and left the house.
In the coming days he did not return and Anna received no news of his whereabouts. With each day, she sank into deeper and darker despair.
What she had done, she had done for him. She had born the humiliation, the invasion of her body, and suffered the inadequate, desperate and sometimes brutal clients. Now she ceased her work as a prostitute. Money was no longer a problem for as well as providing for Michael, she had put money by. She is a good looking woman and had had no trouble maintaining a regular clientele. Not being one of the drug needy prostitutes, she had saved, and now those savings were giving her a good return.
But money was not enough. What she had done was for love – for love of Michael. He had been her reason, virtually her reason for living. Now that reason had gone, probably never to return. What was there to go on living for? She was in "The valley of the shadow."
For almost a year, she struggled on, living from day to day, hoping against all hope to hear from Michael. There was nothing.
Life or Death?
It was sheer chance that a neighbour came knocking at Anna's back door. She had brought some plants in a pot that she thought Anna might like for her garden. It was the neighbour who smelt the gas.
Anna was all but dead by the time the ambulance and paramedics arrived. They and the hospital staff fought to save her, and even when the effects of the gas had seemingly been overcome, Anna seemed to get no better.
Her doctor's concluded that she had lost the will to live, and called in the psychiatrist and hospital chaplain. Anna made a whispered confession, and stated she wanted to die.
One thing was clear, Michael was the key to Anna's recovery.
Efforts were made to trace him, and it was finally the Salvation Army Missing Persons Department that found him.
He had moved to another town where he was working for the Council in the Engineering Department.
The Salvation Army Officer who went to meet Michael told him his mother was very likely to die, and that even if she did make a recovery, the chances were she would make another suicide attempt.
Michael had already begun to regret his hasty condemnation of his mother and agreed to go and see her. When he saw her in hospital, he was almost overwhelmed with compassion for her. She had wasted away, and was surviving almost solely on a drip. Her voice was no more than a hoarse whisper, and there was no sign of the once attractive and vital mother he had known.
"O God," he thought, "Is this what I've done to her?"
She was asleep when he first arrived, so he sat by her bed. After a while Anna opened her eyes. She did not trust what she saw. I'm still asleep and dreaming she thought, but when Michael took her hand, and she felt his warmth and strength, she knew she was awake.
"Michael?" she asked.
"Yes mother," he said.
Anna closed her eyes again, and Michael, frightened, cried out, "Please don't die, mother."
Anna's eyes opened again and she whispered, "I love you Michael."
"I love you mother," don't leave me.
Recovery.
It was those few words that began the road back for Anna. Getting compassionate leave from his work Michael spent hours with her. At the end of a fortnight, Michael had to return to work. Anna's doctor told him that she was now recovering at a very satisfactorily rate, and could probably be released from hospital quite soon. The problem was, she should not be left to live alone. "Is there anyone who could be there with Anna?" the doctor asked.
This was difficult, as Michael was living in a distant town, and there were no relatives that could be called upon to help. After much talk and negotiation with Anna, it was settled that for the time being she would not return to her own house, but live with Michael in his rather small flat.
As the day for her departure from hospital approached, Anna's psychiatrist spoke with Michael.
"She's been traumatised," he said. "The confrontation with you, and the exposure of what she had been doing for years, was a terrible shock. You'll find that she will want to talk about it, probably telling the same stories over and over again. Let her do that. What she needs now, is love, care and someone who will listen to her and accept her."
So it was that Anna and Michael lived together again. The psychiatrist was right, Anna did reiterate the same stories over and over. Not only the night Michael had arrived at her sordid little room, but she spoke also of the men she had had, how they used her, some abusing and hurting her, how all her sex life had been loveless. She wept often.
Michael had his own problems. As he listened to Anna he thought how even if she had not been his real mother, the woman he had gone to could have been someone's mother, someone's sister or daughter. Perhaps once she had been held in someone's arms and they had said, "What a lovely baby."
Michael had gone to that room just as loveless as all those other men had. He had gone there because some friends had bought her for half an hour or an hour. He felt the guilt of this.
Anna was to stay with Michael for a few weeks. The few weeks extended into months, then a year. By then, Anna was well on the way to recovery. She still saw the psychiatrist weekly, but it was Michael's care of her that really worked. They had always loved each other, and now, after their terrible rupture in their relationship, each felt their love restored.
Anna had improved in health so far as to now be helpful around the flat, and so content were they with each other's company, it was decided that Anna should sell her house and Michael his flat, and they would buy a house in the town where Michael worked.
As her health improved Anna's good looks were restored. Men turned to look at her as she walked down the street. Once they moved to the new neighbourhood, some thought that Michael and Anna were husband and wife. She was in fact only fifteen years older than Michael, and as Michael looked very mature for his age, it was an easy mistake to make.
They took to going out to entertainment with each other and this to some extent consoled Michael for the absence of women in is life. For a year, he had been so busy with his work and caring for Anna, that he had lost sight of his female acquaintances. This had severely curtailed what had been a very active sex life, and he had resorted to masturbation to relieve the frustrations he felt.
As Anna continued to improve Michael began to think of resuming some of his past sexual contacts, but found that most of them had now married or found other lovers. He thought he might seek new women, but when it came down to it, he could not be bothered. What he saw was that he was going to use women in not so different a way as those men his mother once served. He felt sick at this thought.
