âSomethingâs up, Mum,â Aaron persisted. âOtherwise you wouldnât be drinking that stuff as quick as you are.â Ingrid tilted the bottle towards the glass. Vodka glugged to the half-way point. âHas someone upset you? What is it? Tell me, Mum ...â
âItâs nothing, Aaron, really. Iâm just being a silly old woman. Leave me alone; Iâll be OK in the morning.â The smile, more a rictal grimace, stretched her face before dying quickly.
In the past Aaron had shown little in the way of filial piety, his mother, even after his fatherâs departure, had always seemed strong, assured and in control. Heâd observed the usual duties, her birthday, Christmas, that kind of thing. To Aaron she was just ... well ... his mother. He loved her, sure, but sheâd never given any hint, any reason to doubt her ability to cope. Heâd rolled his eyes at the gym obsession, the dieting and the constant experimenting with her hair during the Great Transition phase of her life, post-husband. Heâd been mortified at the boob job however â his friends and colleagues had been very vocal on that subject. But now this, this was something new.
âSeriously, Mum, tell me. Whatâs wrong? This isnât like you. It isnât like you at all.â
âOh, Aaron,â Ingrid sighed. âWhy canât I just find a man?â
Aaron scraped a high-legged stool from in front of the breakfast bar. He hefted himself into it and yanked another seat out for his mother. âSit down, Mum,â he instructed. Ingrid, after a momentâs deliberation, lifted herself onto the chair. Her skirt rode high on her thighs, attracting merely a glance from her son. They were his motherâs legs and were of no interest to Aaron. Not yet anyway. âYouâve got loads of men after you. Youâre always out on dates, socialising,â he continued.
âThatâs not what I mean, Aaron.â Ingrid extinguished the cigarette and immediately lit another, delicately placing the filter between her lips and firing up her lighter. Exhaling, she added, âI go out, sure. I have a little fun, but nothing happens,â she appended hastily and tapped ash into the ash-tray. âI might flirt a bit but Iâm not ...â She shrugged. âIâm not ... Well, you know.â
Aaron nodded. âI didnât think you were, Mum.â Not that heâd given it much thought. Some things were just best off left alone. His motherâs dates and what she did or didnât do were not his concern.
The glass met Ingridâs lips. A small sip this time, Aaron noted with relief.
âI know I look good.â The womanâs eyes levelled with her sonâs. âThat isnât vanity, not at all. I know Iâm looking good, especially for forty-three. Sure, there are younger girls out there that I couldnât compete with in the looks department, but that isnât what I mean, Son, what I mean is I canât find a man, the right man, not one who just wantsââ Her head tilted to one side, she sucked at the cigarette and grimaced. ââyou know what Iâm talking about, youâre twenty-one,â she said after blowing smoke at the ceiling. âThey just want me for ... for ...â
âSex?â Aaron supplied.
Ingrid nodded, her hair waving softly as she did. âIâd just like to find someone whoâll show some respect, treat me right, maybe even love me eventually.â Her eyes rolled hugely in their orbits. âBut all I attract is ...â
â... Dickheads?â Aaron furnished.
Ingrid laughed, a loud Ha! that ended in a stifled snort. She grinned. âExactly. Dickheads.â
Then it happened, the epiphany, the defining moment for Aaron. Ingrid, holding the smouldering cigarette elegantly aloft, leaned her torso towards her son. As her body bridged the gap between them Aaron looked down into the tight groove of his motherâs cleavage. Sensing Ingridâs intention â wanting a hug from her son; some reassurance and comfort â he slid off the stool to make the embrace less of a contortion. His mother lithely jumped down from her own perch and they stood face-to-face, her forehead level with his chin. Again his eyes flicked to the dizzying dĂŠcolletage. Aaron recalled the shape of her legs as sheâd slid onto the stool, and, for the first time really recognised his mother as a corporeal entity, a three-dimensional woman with thoughts, feelings and emotions.
Great tits and legs. Damn, he thought, Mumâs pretty sexy ...
When his mother finally leaned in for his embrace, Aaron was surprised to feel, as his arms automatically encircled her, just how fine and delicate she was. His hands slid down the xylophone of her ribcage, coming to rest on her narrow, tapered waist just above the flare of her hips. Her breasts squashed into his chest and, for an instant, as the scent of her perfume, shampoo and tang of tobacco hit his senses, he experienced an almost overwhelming urge to nuzzle at his motherâs neck. He imagined, for a fleeting moment, a heartbeat or two, perhaps three, kissing her on that place between neck and shoulder; thought, momentarily, about licking her throat, sliding his tongue over the jut of her chin, and kissing her mouth.
What would her tongue taste like as he pushed his own between her lips? Would she squirm against him â grinding her sex against the front of his jeans? Would she lift up that pink sweater to reveal those tits, hefting the heavy ripeness in her palms and smiling as she offered her teats to his mouth?
The carnal imagining lasted for just a moment, thatâs all it was, a brief flick of an eyelid, a scrap in time.
Confused by the strength of his emotions, and embarrassed at the sudden, savage erection, shockingly suffused with white hot desire, Aaron abruptly broke from the embrace.
âI ... Sorry, Mum,â he spluttered.
Ingridâs eyes were wide with surprise. âWhatâs wrong, baby?â she asked unaware, in a voice full of maternal concern.
âI have to pee,â Aaron flustered. It was the best he could manage at the time. âSorry ...â
He fled the room, leaving his mother to stare after him, bemused. He left her to her vodka, her cigarettes and her musing.
After the scene in the kitchen, Aaron found his thoughts crammed with his mother. He couldnât stop thinking about her, couldnât help daydreaming about her body. He thought constantly about what sheâd look like naked, how sheâd taste when she kissed, and was her pubic bush left natural or was she clean and smooth down there? He made up excuses to be in the same room as her while she worked on clientsâ accounts in the evenings. The video games were forgotten, all Aaron wanted to do was watch his motherâs face as she concentrated on the columns of figures, her spectacles perched endearingly on the end of her nose. Occasionally sheâd look up from the papers, fixing him with her pale-blue gaze and smiling brightly. âMake us a coffee, thereâs a love?â sheâd ask, sparking up a cigarette and following him into the kitchen to where heâd hurried, like an eager puppy hoping to please her. Then came the darker times when he thought about her as he lay in bed. Then, as his fist inexorably gripped his erection, Aaron imagined all kinds of lewd and depraved scenes, scenes in which his mother stared up into his eyes as she knelt before him, her lips stretched tight around his girth, with him gushing hot semen into her throat. In those fantasies she invariably gagged and coughed and spat thick dribbles of gloop that cascaded over her chin to dangle in long, stretchy ropes. Strands that trembled and swung as she moved, and which, inevitably, spattered down onto the smooth skin of her breasts.
Then one day something shifted. His mother, the tightly wound accountant, changed. There was the afternoon, one Saturday, a scorching hot day, when his mother decided, of all things, to wear a hot-pink bikini bra and a pair of denim cut-offs that were so worn they were bone white, frayed at the edges, and brief enough to make the eponymous Daisy Duke blush.
âHello, dear,â his mother had grinned when Aaron appeared at the doorway between kitchen and garden. âGlad youâre up. You could help me do some tidying in the garden.â Aaron gawped open-mouthed with surprise and arousal at the brevity of the shorts and how they moulded to his motherâs backside. âItâs a lovely day outside,â his mother had trilled. âItâd be a shame to waste it.
Her tits, he thought. Look at her tits. Fuck Iâd just love to stick my cock between those big beauties andââ
ââAre you going to stand there all day or are you going to help?â Ingrid had called, interrupting Aaronâs internal appreciation of her assets. She then turned and, with what could have been a deliberate provocation if Aaron didnât know better, bent and presented her derrière to her sonâs view.