I followed her at a more leisurely pace. In the kitchen I made coffee and then went to sit on the back porch and watch my mother select the switch I would use on her ass later in the evening.
And I won't deny that I enjoyed watching her.
She looked wild out there in the yard. It's a big back yard and from time to time I tended to it. In the middle was a big Willow tree that, I was told several times, was "my" tree since they had planted it about a month after they brought me home from the hospital. She was going through it, almost branch by branch, and for some reason, I thought about something I had read once, in a historical story or article or maybe some original document, a diary, or something. Anyway, I seemed to remember that a "Willow Switch" was the preferred device for administering punishment to wayward children.
So I looked it up.
Leaning back in the Adirondack chair, sipping coffee, I opened the Google app on my cell phone and started research.
I started with the search term "willow switch," and sure enough, there it was.
So I sipped and read and watched Mom as she finally seemed to select the "right" branch.
Mostly I thought.
I've always been one of those guys who thought of a woman, well, not even a woman to be honest, of a pussy as a goal to be scored on. I chuckled a little as I watched Mom working to get the branch broken off of the tree, and remembered how casually my cousin, well, Mom's cousin so I guess he was my cousin too.
I wander.
I remembered how casually my cousin, fresh out of the Navy and living with us while he resettled, had talked about women. He used me as a shill, although I didn't realize it at the time, as he hustled pool in local bars. He'd slip me a beer between games and then comment on the women there.
Mostly, I thought about the streak of sadism I had always recognized in myself and got hard again at the thought that I would be able to indulge it with my mother and justify it as something she "needed."
No, I'm not proud of that morning, but I'm not ashamed of it either. It's a part of me and while my time with my mother let me accept it and, to be perfectly clinical about it, let me hone my technique, I
was
giving her something she both wanted and needed. We talked a few times, seriously, about her and her disease and I realized, even as a barely legal young man, how frightened she was. But I also understood that I was giving her respite from that fear.
And yeah, I suppose I'm justifying myself, but there it is.
But that morning, as I watched her select her switch, I hadn't thought that all through. I just knew how damn excited I was.
When Mom came onto the porch and handed me the branch she had broken off of the tree I felt it and thought it was about right. At the thick end, it was about a half inch in diameter and it tapered over a three-foot length to, well, nothing at the tip where a small leaf grew.
I smiled and handed her my cup.
"Refill please," I said, "while I evaluate."
Christ, she was sex incarnate right then. That black hair with its sprinkling of silver, "salt and pepper" hair, was a snarled rat's nest. Her face, bereft of makeup, showed red and swollen eyes, and there were bulges beside her nose where her sinuses were swollen as well. Her nose was running and she was sniffling almost constantly. She smelled of a body needing a shower along with the womanscent of her arousal and that faint scent from my semen leaking down her thighs.
She said nothing, just took the cup and went into the kitchen.
I swung the branch she brought a couple of times and the feel of it in my hand combined with the soft whispering sound it made passing through the air made me even harder.
I sat back, wallowing in this new power I had, so damn hard I ached.
She brought my coffee and stood there, silent, waiting.
I looked over, seeing her body in profile. Those heavy breasts sagged beautifully. She wasn't old enough that her mammary glands had collapsed and they were flaps, but she had breastfed me and she was 40-something, so they sagged. Her belly showed the roundness of a mother and her ass showed the sag of a 40-something mother.
"On your knees, Mom," I said, "right here," I pointed to the deck just to the right of my chair, "so I can touch you."
Her breath caught and she moaned softly, but she did as I told her.
"Now," I said, taking a sip of my coffee, looking off in the distance, well, at the willow tree, "the tradition is that the recipient prepares the switch, so you need to peel the bark and any little twigs off of this very nice switch."
I handed her the branch and watched, fascinated, as she started at the thick end, her attention focused completely on her job. It took her a minute or so to figure out the process but soon she was splitting the bark with her fingernail and then peeling it off in strips. I watched, fascinated, as she got better until that soft bark was coming off in intact foot-long strips.
And I was just loving the power I held over her.
I watched as she carefully pinched off the final leaf leaving the switch very pale and shiny.
She started to hand it to me but I was ready for that. I had been thinking and knew what I wanted. It wasn't a physical "sensation" for her, but it would be mental surrender beyond anything, I was pretty sure, she had ever done before and I hoped the mental stress would give her a special "sensation."
"No," I said, pushing the switch back at her, "Present it properly."
"Properly?" she asked.
I smiled.
"On your knees here," I said, pointing to the floor in front of me.
Her eyes got big.
"Go on," I said, my voice low and gentle.
When her eyes overflowed I almost relented but then had that thought -
"It's for your own good."
"Go on," I said in that same gentle voice, not yelling or snapping, but unrelenting.
"Oh God," she moaned as she stood, oddly graceful I thought, and then moved to stand before me.
"Down," I said and it hit me that was the same command I used with the dog.
Her eyes were overflowing and her nose was running freely, but I could also smell the womanscent of her arousal.
"Present like this," I said, holding my hands out, palms flat and up.
She laid the switch on her palms and presented it to me.
"Good girl," I said. I ran the switch across my palm, tested it, and found it good.
"That is the way you will present a switch when it is needed," I said, smiling, "do you understand?"
"Yes," she said, her voice soft.
God help me, I WANTED to do it as I laid the switch, very gently, against her cheek.
Her eyes got big.
"If you fail to do it properly," I said, trying for the sort of formal language that the very best of the pornographic videos I had watched or books I had read used, "I'll use the switch and lay a welt right here," and I very lightly brushed her cheek.
And it turned out, I was right. This sort of mental "sensation" was working on her. Her breath caught in a sudden intake, and her eyes closed, her face smoothing into a look of contentment.
And her womanscent, that sweet perfume of a woman's desire, was suddenly thick in the air.
God, I wanted to do it. I could almost see the switch striking that soft skin, hear her sharp scream, and see the bright pink welt rising.
It took an affirmative act of will to stop my hand that very much wanted to do it.
But I didn't.
And I thought, the way her shoulders sagged a little, she was disappointed when the urge had passed.
