This is the first part of a planned series of chapters describing a long and passionate love affair. Further chapters will be submitted as and when I have time and the contents might be tailored to any feedback I receive. Everyone is over 18 and characters are fictional.
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My name is Cliff. This is the story of my 20 year love affair with my mother, Maureen. During this time my mum turned from someone I had seen as a very ordinary and unadventurous housewife and mother into my passionate and very adventurous lover, who tried more or less everything sex has to offer with me -- and at times with others too.
This chapter is about how we got started in 1974, but firstly you need to know a bit about our background. We were a pretty standard London East End family, living in a small block of Council maisonettes in Shadwell, deep in the East End. My father was about 10 years older than mum, and had been a docker after he left the Army in 1945, though by the time the story starts he was suffering from back problems and worked as a clerk in a warehouse. My older brother Keith had left home and had a job as a technical draughtsman, bettering himself through the time honoured route of evening classes. My mum had been doing odd part-time jobs for some years, though at this time had been working for a couple of years as clerk and receptionist in a local railway arch garage which repaired cars.
My mum had always been the livelier of her and my dad. She had kept her figure well (she was 45 when we became lovers), had a wide, pretty face and very dark, almost black hair. I had finished school in July 1974, and had thought of getting some sort of white collar job somewhere without actually having made any plans. I'd been to a Comprehensive School, and like more or less everyone else in the school apart from the odd son or daughter of journalist and TV producers who got dumped in the school for ideological reasons, hadn't though of going to university. However I'd surprised everyone including myself by getting really good A levels, which I knew could get me a college place. So I applied for college through the collective application scheme called UCCA in the autumn and had a couple of interviews before being offered a place to study economics at the University of Kent starting in 1975.
Today I suppose someone like me might have taken off round the world on some sort of gap year jolly, but I didn't even think of it at the time, and instead I wanted to take the opportunity to earn a decent wage for the first time, and to save up for college. So after messing around for the summer, in September '74 I turned 18, and got a job in a warehouse off Backchurch Lane which paid £25 a week, with overtime at weekends. The work was mostly lifting and sorting boxes and crates, offloading lorries from the Continent, opening crates and sorting contents and repacking and reloading the stuff onto vans taking the goods to West End shops and restaurants. After a couple of months of this I was turning from a bit of a skinny pale lad into a strong and fit young guy.
My mum and I had always been quite physical with each other in the way some people are, without being in any way sexual. We used to hug each other whenever anything good or bad happened, and still kissed on cheeks every day when we left the house. Like lots of youngsters, I had seen her in swimsuits and bra and knickers at times, though she never made an exhibition of herself, and while I sometimes thought of her when I wanked, usually I would get myself off by looking at girlie mags. I didn't have a girlfriend until I was 17, and by the time this story starts at the end of 1974, I was still a virgin. I had however, recently acquired a girlfriend of my own age, named Sue, of whom more later.
Like many men of his generation, my dad didn't much involve my mother in his social life, which was focused around his working men's club and Arsenal football club. He was a keen supporter but had also managed to get in with some old docker mates of his who did a range of jobs at Highbury most weeks in the season, including cleaning and stewarding. All in all, dad was out about 2 evenings a week and every Saturday in the season.
As I got older I began to realise everything wasn't perfect between mum and dad, though like most kids I never really thought of them in the sense of a couple having sexual feelings. This changed forever one Saturday in November. I'd been working overtime at the warehouse from 8 to 12 in the morning, and had come home around 1.30 after a pint and a pie with a friend of mine who had also worked the overtime.
A few minutes after I got home my mum also came in from work. I knew she often met my Auntie Irene (not a real aunt but parents' friends were often called Uncle and Aunt in those days) and that they had one or more gin and oranges in a private "club" where Irene sometimes worked (if you've seen Minder you'll know the sort of thing I mean). She seemed definitely tipsy and a bit upset. I asked if I could have a bath (on that particular Saturday we had really earned our money at the warehouse), and she said that there was plenty of water and go ahead. So I ran the bath, put in plenty of bubble bath and enjoyed a good soak. Just as I was getting out mum knocked on the door and asked me to leave the water in as she wanted a bath too (our hot water system took ages to get hot again after we had drained it by having a bath).
So I left the water, went to my room and got dressed in a T shirt and what were known as Loons -- very tight, thin cotton flared trousers. When I went back downstairs, I passed the bathroom and saw the door ajar -- I glimpsed my mum just getting into the bath and quietly (I thought) closed the door to save her embarrassment.
About 20 minutes later I was sitting on the sofa with the Daily Mirror and my mother came wearing her towelling bathrobe. She looked upset and I though she had been crying.
"What's the matter mum -- are you OK?"
"I'm OK love, just a bit upset about something at the moment -- I'll get over it. It's nothing you want to worry about -- I think I'll go and lie down".
Of course if I'd have left it there probably nothing further would have happened between us, but I was a bit tipsy and didn't...
"Mum, don't go -- come and tell me about it -- I might be able to help -- please mum come and sit down".
So she did, hugging the bathrobe around her. She didn't say anything and it was only I after I had asked her again to tell me that she began.
"Look Cliff this is very personal. I'm talking to you like a grown up now -- you are a grown up, you're earning your own money; you'll be off away next year. It's your dad. When we were younger we used to have a lovely time... you know, in bed. Even when we had you boys we used to do it 2 or 3 times a week and we loved it -- you don't mind me talking like this?"
Well of course one part of me was cringing with embarrassment, and another was electrified -- being talked to like an adult, and about sex, and by my mum. The electrified bit won.
"Mum no really please tell me -- you know I love you and I really want you to be happy -- just tell me what's upsetting you -- please".
"All right -- you know it's just as well I had a few drinks with Irene, 'cos I don't think I'd have the nerve otherwise. Anyway, your dad's gradually been getting less and less interested -- oh for 5 or 6 years -- and after he hurt his back we didn't do anything for months. I did manage to get him to start again but every time I had to really work hard to get him stiff enough to do it."
