1
Again it felt like a Sunday on our sleepy side of town. Call me traditional or maybe even a romantic, but what wasn't to love about a lush roast dinner in a cosy candlelit dining room as the evening outside hung enshrouded in mist and drizzle?
I've always taken pride in my culinary skills but whereas I have to admit that Elaine has me beat when it comes to roast potatoes and chicken gravy, there could be no complaints from me as there's nothing better than being served a highly anticipated dinner that you yourself didn't have to make.
'Can I help with anything?' Steven called from his seat at the table through to Elaine's kitchen. The aromas on the air had my stomach growling at this point. I hadn't eaten in six hours. Five more minutes should have been no big deal, but I was overcome by a terrible hunger.
Which may or may not have been the result of my horniness that morning, and afternoon, and the rudely interrupted masturbation session that nearly had me gushing all over the bathroom floor.
Amid the rattle of pan lids and baking trays, Elaine's voice sang back, 'no, nearly done!'
And as much a thrill as this day had been, from that delicious morning sex with my boy, having him dripping from me all morning, and the back and forth teasing with Elaine, I was all the more relaxed now for having showered and dressed down in a thin low-cut white tank top, long flowing white summer skirt...
Not to mention fresh underwear.
As we waited on Elaine I not so absently stroked the back of one of Steven's hands, which had been resting on the tabletop. He turned to look at me, his eyes dark, but with the reflections of two golden candle flames flickering warm and brilliant within.
Unexpectedly but far from unwelcome, he took my hand and turned it up towards his lips, and lovingly left his mark on me. Sliding out of his grip, I flicked my fingers come-hither and turned in my seat to meet him.
Mischievously we smuggled a kiss back and forth before I whispered in his ear to think about this later: me, him, in bed, no clothes on, lots of kissing, and of inevitably the complimentary ins and outs of sharing a bed with his mother.
We were actually interrupted whilst sharing a more chaste kiss as Elaine began to bring in the food. A sly flit of the eye, I caught her stealing a glance and my instinct was to pull myself back into Steven and kiss him again, just a peck again but this time a loud wet one before dinner caught our attention.
'Look at that! Oh, mum, those Yorkshire puds,' Steven practically fawned as the serving plates began to pass him by to settle upon the dining table. Roast chicken, potatoes, mashed carrot and turnip, Yorkshire puddings, stuffing balls, proper homemade gravy straight from the roasting pan sediment -- we were about to die salivating and enter hog heaven,
Elaine's grin was already stretched from ear to ear as she finally managed to sit down and join us. 'Serve yourselves,' she invited as she unscrewed the cap on a bottle of sparkling white and began to fill three flute glasses.
We sat in silence for the next ten minutes, with the exception of satisfied moans and groans as Elaine's cooking stole the show.
2
'So how did the writer's club go today?' I asked the both of them. I didn't need to. I had already asked Steven to make conversation when I got home earlier. I wanted to see where we could take this conversation though, considering some of the things Elaine and I had texted each other.
'It was great, a lot of fun,' Elaine replied animatedly as Steven meanwhile surgically worked his knife and fork through a chicken leg. 'Not the kind of thing I'm used to writing...'
I smirked covertly at that, wondering whatever could she mean?!
'They have this game at the end,' Steven began to explain. 'It's called "Writing On Your Toes."'
I snickered. 'Sounds like it tickles,' I remarked, tearing up a Yorkie to mop up my gravy.
'They give you a theme or a sentence left open to interpretation,' Steven explained. 'You have ten minutes to write on it without any planning.'
'Wow, like a brain teaser,' I replied.
'I failed miserably,' Elaine admitted. I didn't want to believe it.
Apparently neither did Steven. 'No you didn't. Yours was great,' he insisted.
Elaine blushed, unable to keep his gaze. I watched, certain that I was already seeing something between them.
Inside I felt funny.
Butterfly funny.
'It was terrible, I'm a perfectionist. I need half a day sometimes just to write the hook to a short story, and that's usually nothing more than two sentences or a five-line paragraph.'
'You literally won,' Steven chuckled. 'They voted yours the best.'
'What was the theme?' I dared ask.
'A kiss is just a kiss,' Steven said before Elaine could say, or avoid. 'You should have heard it, mum. The windows nearly steamed up.'
Laughter circled the table for a moment. Elaine blushed furiously and hid her face behind one hand.
'That's why then,' I teased. 'She's a pro with the romantic stuff. She just won't admit it.'
By now we were all but finished with our meals, every plate practically cleared. Elaine sidelined her light hazing to offer us leftovers to take home. Steven remarked that me might take the leftover wings since he might not be able to walk home.
'So, going back next week?'
'Maybe,' Elaine spoke first, depends if I get that day off.
'I'm going back, sure,' Steven came next, and then, 'Elaine, I hope you will, I think I learned as much from you as the old-timers.'
'Well, you don't need to wait for Thursdays,' I suggested, eyeing the two back and forth. The faintest silence returned. I felt it hang in the air and dissipate quickly. Was it reluctance? Not a chance in hell.
'If Elaine isn't busy,' Steven put out his cue.
Again, the faintest silence. It was hesitation. The air thickened between my son and my secret girlfriend, like a thunderhead but without threat.
'I could teach you a thing or two, sure,' Elaine said a little timidly. As god is my witness, I saw the spark in her eyes. I knew it well enough. After all, she had promised to teach me a thing or two once upon a time...
And hadn't yet disappointed!
3
We were drinking coffee in the kitchen some time later. It was somehow already twenty to nine. We had teamed up to wash and dry the pots, pans, trays, the crockery and cutlery etc.
Surprisingly, and this hit me right between the eyes so unexpectedly, the subject got onto the relationships of other people from Elaine's older daughter now being married and pregnant with her own first child.
Elaine had asked if Steven thought of having children. It was an innocent question, and frankly that much was to be expected in conversation socially when a man was outnumbered by older women. Rather comfortably Steven had commented that with the right woman he would. But since the last woman turned out to be the wrong woman, he felt disinclined to wonder about it.
From there we ended up talking about the social difficulties of younger generations of the day and age, and the likes of the LGBT community, and how the younger ones' lifestyles didn't particularly bear children in mind.
It was then that Elaine confessed that her youngest daughter, Anna, younger than my Steven, had recently come out to her mother as gay.
'I thought you already knew,' I interjected, taken aback but curious more than anything.
'I already knew a long time that she wasn't fixated on boys, and then men, and that she was always with a girlfriend. I suspected but it was hers to decide to tell me when she was certain...'
'I'm embarrassed now,' I blushed, laughing awkwardly to cover my own tracks. 'I swear you'd already told me about it, to some extent.'
