Bruises

"Dammit!" Peggy said and grabbed her thigh. "Oh, that hurt!"

"You OK, mom?" Walt said with concern as he turned around to face her.

"Yeah, but I'm going to have another bruise," she said looking at her leg. "It's that damn aspirin I have to take every day. It makes me bruise so easily."

"Maybe it's because you're just clumsy," Martin laughed from the depths of his recliner. "What did you run into this time?"

"Walt's wheelchair," she replied still rubbing her leg.

"You have President Bush to thank for your son having to sit in a wheelchair. If he had been honest with us, he wouldn't have lost his leg."

"Stop it, Martin. You know better than that."

"It's OK, mom. I don't mind. Besides, as soon as my new leg is ready I'll be out of this thing. C'mere, let me look at that."

Peggy moved closer to her son and held out her leg for him to see. A little blood was coming from the cut on the inside of her thigh a few inches above her knee.

"You'd better clean that up," he said. "Put some alcohol or some hydrogen peroxide on it so it won't get infected."

"It'll be OK," she said. "It's just a small cut."

"Where did you get this one," Walt asked as he gently pressed his fingers against a yellowish bruise up near the hem of her shorts. "That looks like it hurts."

"I don't remember but it only hurts a little now. It'll go away. It's already getting better."

Walt gently rubbed the bruise on his mother's inner thigh. He felt a lump under the skin and she winced when he rubbed it too hard.

"Ow," she said and pulled away.

"I'm sorry," he apologized as he continued to gently massage it. "I'll be more gentle. Get me some ice and I'll rub it on the spot. That lump worries me."

"No, it's all right," she replied but she did not pull away.

Grasping her thigh with his entire hand, he continued to gently work his fingers around the bruise. Peggy didn't pull away but she put her hand on his shoulder, dropped her chin down, and closed her eyes.

Looking up, Walt realized that she seemed to be breathing a little faster and her thigh started to feel moist with perspiration.

"Are you OK?" he said in a low voice so Martin wouldn't hear.

"Yes, I'm fine," she answered softly. "That feels so good. You have gentle hands."

Walt felt a stirring in his crotch as he continued to gently knead his mother's thigh. He always admired her and he nourished sexual thoughts about her from the time he first woke up with a morning erection. Being able to touch her like this was a thrill and his mind raced with the possibilities.

Peggy seemed to wake up from a trance and she pulled back out of his reach. Throwing a guilty glance over at Martin, who had fallen back asleep in his chair, she raised her hand from her son's shoulder and smiled at him. Patting him on his head, she laid her hand against his cheek for a moment.

"Thanks, son, that felt nice. Now I have some things to do," and bending down she kissed him on the forehead before turning and going into the kitchen.

Walt watched her pad down the hall in her bare feet. Her hips swayed back and force with each step and he tried to visualize what it would look like without the shorts covering it. He knew what he had to do as he wheeled down the hall towards his bedroom and closed the door behind him.

Standing on his good leg, he unbuttoned his shorts and let them drop to the floor before lying down on the bed. He slid his hand under the elastic waistband of his jockey shorts and encircled his now firming erection. Slowly working his fist up and down on his hard on, he thought of his mother and where he would like to kiss her smooth skin.

His mother's words, "Thanks son, that felt nice," came back to him at the moment he ejaculated with several long, ropy streams of semen that covered his hand.

Using his crutches, he went into the bathroom and removed the sock and bandages that covered his stump. The doctors had tried to save his knee but he ended up losing it after three surgeries. It looked strange to him and he still couldn't visualize how it would look when his new leg was there. The leg wouldn't be ready for a few weeks and they needed the hospital bed, so they sent him home to wait for it.

Sitting on the special seat in the tub, he washed under the hand-held shower spray and thought back to the last few months after he was wounded. His mother was always there while he was in Walter Reed. She stayed in one of the rooms for family members and helped nurse him through the worst of it. He knew she was catching flak from Martin but she refused to return home.

His little hometown in Pennsylvania had adopted him and the gifts and cards of encouragement that kept coming from the people there always brought tears to his eyes.

"Even Marines cry?" his mother kidded him when she saw his eyes well up while reading the cards and letters from the local school students and other townspeople.

The Secretary of Defense personally presented him with the Silver Star and a Purple Heart while he was still in the hospital. Peggy stood by his bed during the ceremony and she had the privilege of pinning the medals onto his pajamas.

The latest surgery was the worst one from an emotional standpoint. They took off more of his leg to just above where his knee used to be. Then they taught his mother how to take care of it and sent him home. Martin drove down in a borrowed van and grumbled all the way back on the drive up north.

Leaning against the vanity, he toweled himself dry and dressed in shorts and a tee shirt he balanced on his crutches and walked out into the kitchen.

"Mom, can you help me, please?" he asked indicating his stump.

"Sure honey. I'll get a clean sock and some lotion."

Walt sat on a kitchen chair and holding his stump up he examined the spots where they had removed the stitches. Everything looked all right and he didn't detect any sign of infection from what he could see. His mother would check the ones that he couldn't see on the other side. He rubbed his stump and, even though the skin had very little feeling, there were times when the whole thing ached like hell.

He sometimes experienced phantom pain, as if the lower part of his leg was still there, but he learned to overcome it by concentrating on other things. Hot packs helped and he used them two or three times a day when the cramping in his stump got too painful.

His mother returned with a sock and the skin medication that they had given him. She gently massaged it into his stump and covered it with the special, elastic sock.

"How's that?" she asked when she was finished.

"Good, thanks," he replied and lifted his leg up to examine it. "Give me some of that cream and I'll put it on your leg."

"Oh no, that's OK," she said. "It's OK now."

"Come back here or I'll chase you down and molest you."

Ray stopped when he realized what he had said. He did not know where it came from and he was embarrassed that it came out of his mouth. He was about to apologize when his mother went along with the joke.

"Yeah, you and how many Marines," she laughed. "Gee, on second thought, more Marines, huh? That sounds like fun. How soon can you get them here?"

Walt took the tube of cream out of her hand and squeezed a dollop of it onto his palm. Rubbing his hands together, he gestured for her to come closer and grasping her thigh with both hands, he gently massaged it.

Peggy leaned on the back of his chair for support while he rubbed the cream into her leg. She could feel his hands warming her skin and she relaxed and enjoyed it. His fingers crept higher on her thigh and the thought crossed her mind that she should tell him to stop but it felt too good.

He was using his thumbs to massage her and that left his fingers under the hem of the leg of her shorts. She felt a twinge in her groin as she let herself bask in the sensations of being touched so close to her sex. Shifting her legs, she rested her hands on his shoulders and lowered her head to where her lips were almost touching his closely shaved head.

The electricity Ray felt moving between them was intoxicating.

"Try it this way," he whispered and maneuvered her legs so that she was straddling his stump.

Peggy could feel her inner thighs touching the skin of his leg and the feeling felt so intimate that it unnerved her. She was getting ready to move when he slid both hands up under the leg of her shorts and holding her in his hands he tilted his head back and looked into her eyes.

"Like that?" he whispered.

"Yes," she whispered back and leaned down to kiss him on the forehead.

Walt surprised her by tilting his head farther back and kissing her on her lips.

It wasn't a peck between mother and son and it was not a deep, intimate kiss. He held his lips against hers just long enough for her to realize the difference. She allowed the touching of their lips to continue for a few seconds before pulling back.

"I love you, mom," he said with the breath from his words tickling her lips.

Straightening up, she said, "Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. I'll be right back."