From Loathing To Love

My name is Alice, and I want to tell you how, after years of fear and loathing, I finally found sensitive love.

He had given a gasping moan as he pumped the last of his semen into me and began to relax. Now I held his head to my breasts and stroked his soft brown hair.

It was done now, and guilt and recriminations were useless. After all, what should I do? Go to a psychiatrist and say," I've engaged in abnormal sex with my son?" Why abnormal when we had both longed for this fulfillment, and enjoyed each other so much?

Or perhaps I should go and confess to a priest, "Father I have sinned with my son; grant me forgiveness"? Forgiveness for what? Love that had overwhelmed us both to the point where we undertook that most loving of acts between man and women, to couple in the act of sex?

No, I would face the consequences of our sexual union without seeking either help or forgiveness.

If I did need to justify myself I would say, "I have suffered from sexual fear and deprivation for so long, and now I have found a sensitive lover."

God knows! I was so young, so very young when they raped me and made me pregnant with him!

To this day, I have never been sure how many of them took me that night. Possibly eight, but I'm not sure because I was so bewildered and horrified at what they were doing to me I was in no condition to count.

I had just gone to the corner shop for mother. It was dark and they sprang out of a car and pulled me into it. There were two in the back I know, because I fought with them, and I could see two in the front seat.

They took me to a deserted park, and there was another car with more of them. They ripped off my clothes and I screamed, "I'm a virgin, I'm a virgin, please don't hurt me." They laughed at me and put some sort of tape over my mouth and held me spread-eagled.

The first one entered me brutally, tearing my hymen apart with an agonising thrust. As he finished, I heard one of them jeer. "Look what the bitch has done to you, you're covered with blood."

The one who had just finished kicked me in rage and I heard him say, "You dirty slut."

After that, one followed another. I gave up struggling and hung whimpering in a morass of pain. As I have said, how many of them there were, and how many times each of them took me, I don't know. It seemed to last forever.

When they had had enough they got into the cars and left me. I pulled off the tape they had put across my mouth and tried to rise, but my legs would not support me. I crawled with blood and semen dribbling out of me, until I got to the roadside, and there I was eventually found by a couple driving by.

There followed black and ghastly nights and days. There was the hospital and police, examinations, tests and questions – endless questions. They made me feel as I had set the rape up. I seemed to have entered a nightmare world. In the end none of my assailants were ever caught.

Starting to come out of this darkness, I received counseling, but finally it was my parent's love that brought me through. I clung to them at that time, and when I was told I was pregnant, it was their support that allowed me to decide I would not accept the abortion that I was being pressed to undergo.

Quite why I refused the abortion I have never been clear about. Perhaps it was some mad idea that out of the pain and suffering something good and innocent might emerge. Whatever the reason, from the time I held Edmund in my arms, I have never regretted my choice.

My parents continued to be supportive, helping me in the early stages of motherhood, which by all accounts I was far too young to undertake. My son was six years old when I finally moved into a flat with him. From that time on we have lived together with no other person.

The terrible sexual assault gave me a very negative attitude towards sex and men. Although I had what were no doubt honourable approaches from men to take me out, I always shied away. The friends I had were all women, and if I was invited to a married woman's home, I maintained a polite distance between her husband and myself.

The love I had to give went to my son who, although male, did not seem to come into category of one to be rejected. As he entered puberty, I was proud and rejoiced at his development into a fine looking young man.

In the early stages of his adolescence, he became very shy, hiding his bodily changes from me. This reticence on his part made me all the more curious to see the transformation. Despite or perhaps because of my terrible rape experience, I had never seen a nude male, and I was interested. I tried to see my boy undressed, as I had seen him when he was little.

The glimpses I got of him inclined me to think how beautiful his body was. By his mid teen years, he looked strong and well shaped, and his genitals were, I thought, fully developed. I knew he was experimenting sexually with girls from his school, and I thought, "Lucky girls."

It was around his mid-teens that the tables were turned on me a little. I noticed him looking at me in that speculating manner I had observed in other men. Somehow, he managed "accidentally" to enter the bathroom while I was showering or in the bath. He also made similar accidental entries to my bedroom, excusing himself with statements like, "I just came in to say goodnight."

I took these "visits" without comment, letting him see me in whatever state of undress I was. In truth, I think I rather enjoyed letting him see my body, especially as I knew it was worth seeing. Also, I think I wanted to experience a male response to my female physique, and felt safe with him.

He seemed fascinated with my breasts, and one day, unexpectedly; he asked me what size bras I took. I told him 38D, and he smiled. On an another occasion soon after, he began to question me about women's physical anatomy, especially the reproductive part of that anatomy.

Given that he must have seen some of his girls' bodies, I was puzzled as to why he was trying to see my body and why he was asking me these questions. At that stage I took it to be a general curiosity about women, and not especially focused on me.

The realisation that it was not quite such a general curiosity came about through a visit to a fairly remote beach. There was not a soul in sight, so when we changed we simply stripped off and put on our bathing things. At one point when I was naked, I saw Edmund looking at me, and being nude himself, I saw his penis rise like a great tower.

"My God, I thought, I'm turning him on." This thought gave rise to a disturbing outcome for me. Fortunately, a woman's sexual arousal is not as visible as the male's. I felt myself getting wet between the legs. I hastily put on my bikini and fled into the water and began swimming. Edmond followed me in.

There were no further developments at that time and nothing was ever said, but I had received the warning signal. My son found me sexually desirable and I him. I talked to my self very severely, raising all the usual points on this subject – incest, law, morality, social disapproval, consanguinity.

This self-lecturing may have done something for my intellect, but it did not help my emotions. Living alone together, and being very tactile and affectionate, we were often in physical contact. Now I began to notice that when we touched or hugged, I could feel his hard manhood, and was aware of a throbbing in my clitoris. At times when he was not present I would think about him, and experienced a heavy ache in my genitals and lower abdomen.

Other signs that at the time seemed incongruous caught my attention. Instead of spending lots of time away from the house as he had during his early and mid-teen years, he began to be at home a lot more. I noticed that the handkerchiefs he handed in for washing were often caked with dried semen, and patches of his discharge also appeared on his bed sheets.

It seemed that he had given up coupling with his girl friends, and was masturbating heavily instead. "Why?" I asked myself. I thought I knew the answer, but still tried to hide it from myself.

Apart from my self-lecturing, I had another problem to be faced and dealt with. No man had entered me since I had been raped, but that terrible night was now almost nineteen years behind me. Whilst I shall never forget that dark ordeal, its psychological effects had diminished, and now, in my thirties, I began to feel the absence of a loving sexual relationship.

The lack of such a relationship was clearly nothing to do with my ability to attract men. I had had enough approaches over the years to reassure me that I was desirable. Yet, all these approaches I had repelled because I simply could not bring myself to trust a man. I realised that this was irrational, but I had been so psychologically and physically abused, I seemed to freeze every time a man drew near to me.

There was one male that did not produce this response in me, and that was my own son, Edmund, the forbidden male. In any case, I was obviously much older than he was, but then, not as old as some of the women young men seem to desire these days. "Could I…?" "No I mustn't. I will not."

Although I did not give it any thought at the time, looking back I can now see that a crisis moment had to come. Edmond and I could not go on living in close proximity, constantly being sexually aroused by a desire for each other, without something finally giving way.

The critical moment came one night as I was preparing for bed. I had just finished my shower, and had gone to my bedroom wearing only my bathrobe. I sleep naked, and was in the process of removing the robe when Edmond tapped on my door and walked in.

I still had just taken the robe off and was holding it in my hand. Edmond stopped short, gazing at me. It was the clearest view of my body he had ever experienced and in a stifled voice, he gave his usual excuse, "I just came in to say goodnight."

He approached to give me his usual goodnight peck on the cheek. I drew the robe up to my body in a half-hearted attempt to cover myself. He was wearing only the thin shorts he usually wore in bed, and I could see his potent erection.

There was a sort of clamoring in my head. I felt that this was the moment of decision, that we had played for long enough and I could not bear the sexual tension between us any longer.

I knew he would not risk the initiative so, as his lips approached my cheek I moved my face so as to plant my lips on his in a sort, lingering kiss. I was not experienced in deep kissing, so my kiss at that time was probably no more than an exceptionally warm motherly kiss. What I did next was, like my kiss, not born of experience, but was born of female instinct. I pulled my lower abdomen against him and started to rotate my hips.

I released his lips from my kiss, and we were both shaking, our breath rasping out of us. Part of me wanted him to turn from me and leave the room, but another part, a more potent force, silently begged him to stay.

He held me close and gasped, "You too, mother?"

"I'm afraid so, darling."

We stood for a while longer clinging to each other, both of us afraid to say the next word or make the next move.

Eventually I spoke up. I suppose it was an inconsequential question, a counterfeit attempt to sound rational, but it was all I could think of to break the impasse. "How long have you felt like this?"

"Almost since I began to want a woman," he said in a smothered voice. " What are we going to do, mother?"

I felt his penis pressing against me, hot and throbbing. My own sex organ was saturated with my lubricant. I had gone beyond rational control and was trapped in a whirlpool of raging emotions. My reply was one that welled up from the depths, almost unbidden and beyond my control.

"Just once, please my love. Let me experience you just once."

He moved me to the bed and lay me down, and as he did so, old memories swarmed back. "You won't be rough with me, will you? You won't hurt me? Please be gentle."

Edmond stopped, looking at me questioningly.

I had never told him that his birth was the result of a gang rape. I confess I had lied to him on this score. For all he knew his father was a married man I had had an affair with. Now, in this moment of sexual fire, I told him what I suppose was a truth.

"Darling, I haven't had a man since your father, and I'm a little anxious. Just be very gentle with me, please."

To an outsider it must seem ridiculous that a woman of my age should be speaking like this to someone who was little more than a boy. I don't doubt that mostly it is the older woman who takes charge. It is she who accepts the responsibility to initiate the boy into the pleasures of sexual relationships. Now the situation was reversed, and it was Edmond who must teach me.

He told me later that he was surprised that I had gone so long without sexual contact. He had thought I must have a lover or lovers who were around when he wasn't. Like when he was at school. At the time of our first coupling, he gave no indication of this surprise, and stroking my breasts, he said, "I shall be very gentle with you." Then he added one significant word, "Always." I leave my reader to interpret what he might have meant by that.

He was indeed very gentle with me. I could not have wished for a tenderer lover as he began my initiation into the realm of loving sex. He restrained himself for my sake, continuing to stroke one of my breasts as he sucked the nipple of the other. He could hardly have done a more endearing thing to me. "Oh God," I thought, "It's as he was when baby and I fed him at my breasts."

I put my hands behind his head, holding him to me, willing him to go on letting me suckle him, yearning to once more have the milk to nourish him with.

After a while he pulled away and moved me to the side of the bed. "What are you doing to me, darling," I asked.

"Ssh," he said, " Just relax and leave it to me."

I felt him part my legs, raising them as he did so. I saw his head go down to my genitals, and putting his hands under my buttocks he…"Oh my God his tongue, he's putting his tongue into me! He's tasting me!"

I had read about oral sex, but had not anticipated it ever happening to me. I seemed to go into a mental spin. For a few moments, it was as if it was happening to someone else and not me and I was looking on. I wanted to push him away and drag him to me at the same time. I think I was calling out, "Don't, please don't. You mustn't," but he did not stop.

His tongue found my clitoris and waves of intense excitement seemed to overpower me. Something was approaching – something I both feared yet desired passionately. I think I was crying out, "Don't Edmund, don't…I'm frightened, please don't let it happen to me."

He did not stop, and amid my begging and pleading I suddenly felt myself falling as if into a brightly lit well. Lights flashed in my head and my body seemed to shake and gyrate. Waves of delicious agony engulfed me and I was screaming out, Yes, darling…please don't stop…I'll do anything but don't stop."

In those moments when I had what I afterwards realised was my first ever orgasm, I would have let him kill me so long as he did not stop.

The waves of ecstacy began to diminish but with continued tremors, and I found I was weeping and saying, "Oh Edmund, what have you done to me? What have you done you beast?"

He had drawn me back to the middle of the bed and was lying between my legs. I felt his penis probing for my vaginal entrance. He found it and entered.

He slid into me easily I was so wet with my lubricant. He was speaking in a low passionate voice, "I love you mother, I love you…I want to love you to death."

If his words sounded slightly threatening, his actions were wonderfully caring. He moved back and forth in me, and the walls of my vagina were beautifully tight around his shaft. I had always loved him, but now that love took on an extra dimension. If he really had wanted to love me to death, I think I would have willingly died for him.

The ejaculations of the rapists I had experienced as something horrible. Edmund's was something entirely different. The rapists took me with violent lust, as if they hated me and were avenging some awful wrong I had done to them. Edmond, even as he gratified himself, still gave his love. He made our union an incredibly magical act.

I felt him speed up and push ever deeper into me and I knew he was about to inject his sperm into me. Inexperienced lover that I was, I tried to move with him. I wanted his semen in me, wanted it deep into me.

The first eruption caused him to groan and me to cry out, "Oh darling, yes." He seemed to go on forever, filling me with his seeds of love. I wanted him to fertilise me, to begin that mysterious process the end of which is the fruit of love, a child. That we were committing incest, that he was my son, did not weigh in the balance at that moment. All I understood was that we were wrapped in a world of love.

I have sought for a word to describe what I, and I am sure Edmond, were experiencing as we united. Accuse me of blasphemy if you must, but the only word that seems to fit is "consecration." It was an act in which we set apart our sexual lives to be used by each other and no one else.

So, he lay his head between my breasts and I stroking his hair.

My thoughts ran on as I caressed him, "Oh my love, my boy, my baby, I love you so much." He seemed to fill my whole world – to be my reason for living.

When the climax is past, more composed thoughts emerge.

Once the enchanted box of mingled love and sex has been opened, and its pleasures set free, they are almost impossible to put back in the box. The delights are double edged. They can bring great joy or great tragedy depending upon the people who wield them.

It is my contention that good and evil, beauty and ugliness, love and hate are often but sides of the one coin. Sex with the rapists was ugly and evil, with Edmund it was beautiful and good. Perhaps the greater the potential for good that exists in something, the greater its potential for evil.

To use another metaphor, Edmund and I had let the genie out of the bottle, and even if we wanted to, we would probably never get it back in again. I had said, "Just once." He had said, "Always." So, what was now to become of us?

I felt Edmund stirring. His lips came to mine as his hand sought and found my breast. This time it was no chaste kiss such as I had given him before. I now experienced my first deep, tongue-thrusting kiss as he explored my mouth.

He went from my mouth to my nipples, sucking and softly nibbling them to just below my pain threshold. His finger sought my clitoris and I began to squeal as he stimulated me there. He brought me to the edge of another climax before he swiftly entered me again, and apparently timing it carefully, we climaxed together.

We stayed together for a long time, but finally separated, and I fell into a remarkably peaceful sleep given the exhilarating time I had just experienced.

When I woke in the morning Edmund was lying with his arm across me. I tried to gently extricate myself so as to get up and prepare breakfast. I was apparently not gentle enough, because I woke him. His arm tightened round me, and much to my amazement he rolled me onto my back, opened my legs, and entered me.

It was a very sweet experience. If the previous couplings had been gentle, this was even more so. It was as if he just wanted to be in me, to be part of me, with no clear intention of implanting more sperm into me. I could have let him stay all day like this, perhaps just talking of my love for him. Intended or not, he finally did shoot more of his semen into me. I did not have an orgasm myself, but wanted to pull him into me, to make him part of me and never let him go.