If I Had the Words

"Mr. Peterson."

"Sir?"

"If a gumboil could boil oil, how much oil could a gumboil boil, if a gumboil could boil oil?"

The class tittered. The last lesson of the afternoon was always open to interpretation, being General Studies, and Steven Smaley, or Smelly Smaley, our lecturer, would use it to stretch our minds in ways not laid down in the curriculum.

"Don't really know, Sir."

"You have to be precise, Mr. Peterson. Do you know or not know?"

"Don't know, Sir."

"Well thank you for that small effort, at least. Umm, Mr. Riley, could you perhaps enlarge on Mr. Peterson's broad statement?"

I put down my pen and appeared to ponder the question before saying,

"Well, this is an assumption, isn't it, Sir, that a gumboil

could

actually boil oil. Is it its own oil that's being boiled? Or are we using the verb in its strictly transitive case where the gumboil is transformed into some sort of power-source to boil other people's oil? Personally, I think the exact quantity boiled would be irrelevant considering the labor involved in registering such a small amount -- depending on the size of the gumboil, I mean. My mate down the road had this huge gumboil..."

"Thank you, Mr. Riley. I have in my mind a vivid picture of your

mate's gumboil

."

I must say he did do a fair impression of my accent.

The class tittered again.

"But you are quite correct when you say it is an assumption. We go round

assuming

that the world we live in tomorrow will be very similar to today's, and we have adjusted our way of life to accommodate that. But survival cannot solely rely on such an assumption. It has to depend also on how well we can adapt to change. What if..." and here he brought out a copy of the Daily Star, "as this reputable broadsheet maintains, having sifted through the astounding number of females with adorable assets, what if next week, Earth will be bombarded by dozens of asteroids which will in all probability wipe out ninety percent of the human race?"

He looked around the class and his gaze fell again on Pete Peterson.

"So, Mr. Peterson, what will you be doing this time next week?"

"Same as everybody else, Sir."

"Oh? And what might that be?"

"Shitting myself, Sir."

"Fair enough. Do you, perhaps, see any way to profit from this situation?"

I stuck my hand up.

"Mr. Riley, yet again?"

"I'd use any spare money to buy shares in a toilet-roll company."

Smaley smiled. Smiley Smaley? And pointed at me.

"Now

that

is anticipation. Mr. Peterson, come the end of the world, you'd do well to stand next to your friend here. Thank you very much, class. For next week, assuming that we'll still be here of course, I want you all to have considered an assumption that involves something that does not exist today, but, to everyone's surprise, might happen tomorrow. So your assignment is simply 'If...' Now,

if

you'll all leave the class and let me get back to my terribly informative newspaper...apparently Celebrity Big Brother is claiming all the headlines...governments might collapse, but..."

Pete Peterson and I lurched out into the quadrangle with a ball at our feet.

"Kev, you're such a toady. 'Please, sir, me sir...meee!' "

Everyone seemed to be doing a fair impression of my accent today. I felt I had to make some effort to get back into Pete's good graces - "If old Smaley could lick dicks, how much dick could Smaley lick if Smaley could lick dicks?"

Pete appeared to consider this, but apparently his mind was headed in a different direction.

"If Kev's best friend could cum up Kevin's mother's bum, how much cum could his best friend cum up Kev's mum's mummy-bum?"

I flung the ball at him and it struck him full in the stomach.

"Oof...!"

"Keep my Mum out of your filthy mind, you perv. I was going to invite you round to our place to see the match on the box tonight, but I've just changed my mind..."

"No, no! I'm sorry! I didn't mean it...invite me round, pleeese? I'm dying to watch...well, actually, watch your Mum's ass while you're glued to the screen..."

When he turned and ran, laughing his head off, I picked up the ball and, with a swerving arc throw, targeted him once more, this time squarely in the back.

"Kev, I've got to tell you, you'd make a great goalie...Ever thought of trying out for....?"

By the time we got to our house, we were best of mates again. The Community College we were both attending was a fair walk from our street, but we didn't mind because we'd usually stop off at the park halfway there and boot the ball around for a while.

We were attending the college because we'd had weak results in our exams and were, well, at least I was, making a belated effort to catch up. Pete could apparently take or leave exams and was just happy to postpone having to go out to work for a living for another while and continue sponging off his parents.

For my part, towards the end of the previous term I'd become involved with an outrageously sexy girl and, much to Mum's dismay, had spent far too much of my free time fondling her instead of revising for the exams. With the over-confidence of youth and the proud statements of my Mum ringing around in my head that I was 'the cleverest lad she'd ever seen', I'd been shocked and depressed when my results had come through. By that time my relationship with the girl, Jessie, had cooled and we'd discovered that we had in fact very little in common and now I rarely saw her even to talk to.

Mum hid her disappointment well, but over a cup of coffee and a heart-to-heart we'd worked out that I should try again for higher grades while getting a part-time job to help cover expenses. We actually shook hands on our 'partnership' and I was eager not to have to look into those lovely eyes and see disappointment reflected in them ever again. Maybe this is what Pete had meant by me toadying up to Smaley? I wasn't. I was just trying to do my best the second time round.

Coming into the house, I closed the front door quietly behind me and went through into the kitchen where Mum was already at the worktop preparing something that smelled delicious. In spite of myself, I couldn't resist taking in her bum enclosed in its loose pleated skirt and swaying from side to side as she hummed to herself while engrossed in her work. I mean, I had to see what all the fuss was about of course, and, objectively speaking, Pete had a good point. She had a firm ass anchoring a slim waist and sitting proudly on top of a pair of smooth and curvy legs which in their turn descended to a pair of trim ankles. Now if she'd been wearing high heels and not those house shoes...phew.

Mum sensed someone was behind her and spun round, an open smile crossing her face as she saw it was me. Well, who else would it be? I quickly raised my eyes from bum level and returned the smile.

"Hi Mum."

"Hey Kev." She reached her arms out towards me and enclosed me in a tight hug, her heavy breasts pressing up into my chest and planted a wet kiss onto my cheek. As I reciprocated with my own kiss, I idly wondered how she might greet me if I'd been away for a few months and not just a few hours... damn that Pete! He was getting me thinking of Mum in all these sexy scenarios. Would I be able to look at her as just 'Mum' ever again?

"A good day?"

"Yeah, fair enough. History, English Lang, Lit and General Studies. It meant we had the one lecturer for most of the day, but it was alright, I think he's a good teacher, gets you involved. He could be an actor..."

"Mmm, that's already an improvement, you used to come home complaining all the time. So, this teacher, I suppose he's ancient and goes round in a gown and mortar board with chalk marks all over him? Like Mr. Chipps...?

"Who? But no, he's about your age I suppose..."

"And just what age do you suppose that to be, mister? You know a lady never tells..." She perched a wrist on one hip, daring me to guess.

"Well..." I made a show of looking her over from top to bottom. "I'd guess at twenty-one..." She beamed a huge smile.

"Second time round, of course..." I defended my face as she went to hurl a dishcloth at me.

Then, "Is he married?"

Thoughts and consequences rushed through my head at warp speed.

"Mum, there's no way in the world I'm ever going to be known as 'Smelly Kev'..."

"What?!?"

So I told her how our lecturer's name was Smaley, hence the nickname of 'Smelly' and that if she went out with him she'd probably fall for him because admittedly he was good-looking and funny but then they'd get married and she'd take his name and so I'd become 'Son of Smaley' which would eventually become 'Smelly Kev' and my life as I knew it would be over and....sigh.

Mum stood there giggling away.

"What? It could well happen...!"

"No, it's not that. I'm just amazed at the speed of your thought processes after I'd just asked whether he was married." Grin.

"Oh. Well...I don't know if he's married. You want me to check it out?"

"Couldn't hurt. And if he's not, I could make up an excuse to go speak to him, tell him he needs to give you more homework 'cos you're a slacker..."

I nonchalantly picked up some flour from the worktop and flicked it in Mum's direction. It landed on her nose and down her front. She was momentarily stunned, with her mouth open at what I'd just done. Then her mouth turned into a wicked grin and she picked up her own pile of flour.

"No! Don't you dare!" But she did dare. The ensuing battle resulted in the whole kitchen resembling an arctic blizzard with us as two abominable snowmen.

Mum said breathlessly, "You look like an abominable snowman..."

"You look more abominable than me..."

The fight resumed until we were physically tussling with each other. Mum forced flour down into my shirt and I...well, I pulled out the elasticated neck of her top and shoved flour down into the chasm between her breasts, the soft valley momentarily enclosing my hand as I, uh-uh, discovered she wasn't wearing a bra.

"You cheeky little monkey!"

We pulled apart. Thankfully she was still laughing. She pulled out her top with one finger and gazed down into the damage perpetrated on her bosom. I stood stock-still. She turned to one side and before I knew it, had taken the remains of the bag of flour and, pulling at my belt, had poured it out into the top of my jeans and scrunched the empty bag down there for good measure.

"Fair's fair," she said and patted my crotch. A white cloud blew up out of the top of my pants. She coughed at me through the mist.

I grabbed hold of her round the waist, pinning her arms to her sides. I pulled her in towards me and yet another dust cloud blew up. We were both laughing at the silliness and nuzzling at each other's necks.

"Phfwaw..!" I theatrically spat out a mouthful of flour and then leaned back to take in her lovely face.

"Close your eyes." Her blue eyes. She did so, and I bent in and licked across her dust-covered eyelids. Then down her nose. And then across her lips, which parted slightly under the soft pressure. This time I didn't spit out.

"There you are."

"Thank you. Now close yours."

I did so. And I felt Mum's lips sweep themselves horizontally across mine. Then her left cheek wiped across my left cheek, then her right across my right. And then her tongue inserted itself between my lips and across my teeth.

"I won."

We gazed with smiles at one another whilst continuing in our hug, until we both seemed to realize that though our upper bodies had drawn apart so we could take in the other's face, from the waist down there wasn't a breath of air between us. Did the stirring below make Mum realize that parts of me were enjoying the fact?

Momentarily, she seemed to press her body in towards me even further before, in a fluster, pulling away. I barely had time to push my hand through her hair to remove stray strands from her face before she said, "Umm. We might have to order out."

We both looked around at the disaster zone which was the kitchen.

"Pizza?"

"Pizza."

By the time it arrived we'd showered and made ourselves and the kitchen a bit more presentable, even if the delivery boy had looked as though he was tempted to comment on my prematurely aged look, what with the flour apparently still streaking my hair in places.

We'd ordered the large size pizza because, as Mum said, I'm a growing lad. She might have been right, because when it arrived I was the one to wolf down almost three quarters, while Mum pecked politely at her slice.

"Mum, eat up. If I'm a growing lad, then you're a growing girl."

She thrust out her bosom, where her nipples clearly jutted out beneath the thin top.

"You really think I need to grow anymore?" she asked, looking down at her proud battlements.

Well, she was the one offering me to look at her body, after all, so I didn't really have a choice other than to take in the impressive sight. As well as her proud nipples, the dimpled areolae surrounding them were also putting on a good show. I was just in the middle of taking in the awesomeness of it, amazed at how firm and buoyant was each breast, a tribute, I suppose, to her religiously working out, when she quietly said,

"I see you're completely grown up. Maybe you can stop eating now."

I raised my eyes to hers and my face turned a beetroot red. "I...I..."

I needn't have worried. She smiled and stood up, collecting our dishes together. "I guess boys will be boys..." She winked, ruffled my hair and nudged my shoulder with her hip as she passed by me on the way to the sink. Whilst washing the pots, she said over her shoulder,

"So, your English Lit. You've got to read all those 'classic' books which used to bore the pants off everybody?"

I had turned in my chair and was watching the various muscles in her bum working as she leant from side to side with the dishes, taking them, soaping them, rinsing them, sticking them upside down onto the draining board...

"Yeah, those, plus Shakespeare of course...last time it was Richard the Third and Macbeth which was pretty good, I mean all that killing and ghosts and mayhem and stuff. I really got into that and I think I did well there..."

"Yeah, I suppose it was like watching a sixteenth Century 'Die Hard' for you..?"

"Yeah, something like that I suppose, but, well, if you're making those sort of comparisons, I think this year I'm afraid it's going to be like watching a couple of sixteenth Century Hallmark movies..."

"Wait. Don't tell me...umm, 'As You Like It' and, let's see...oh, of course...'Romeo and Juliet'?"

She turned round to me, smiling and wiping her hands on the dishcloth. Some water had spilt across her left breast.

"Right again. It's pretty girly stuff." I couldn't take my eyes away from the spill which had made that part of her top almost transparent. "I mean, 'Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?'" I raised my hands in frustration. "What is that? Why doesn't she just turn the light on to see where he is?"

Mum laughed and patted at her chest, momentarily covering her nipple.

Oh Kevin, my dear, sweet boy, 'wherefore art thou' means 'why are you', not 'where are you'..."

"Huh?"

She was wiping at her breast as she sensed the damp spot. The breast was springy.

"Romeo is a Montague and Juliet is a Capulet. The two families detest one another, but these two have fallen in love. See the problem, O Romeo?"

"Oh. So she's asking, of all the families in town, why did you have to belong to that one?"

And I was thinking, of all the girls I knew, why was I so attracted to my mother?

"That's right. Ah, but I love that play. I never told you, but I was Juliet in our school play, I'll never forget it..." She closed her eyes and hugged herself, reliving the memories.

"

You

were Juliet?"

"Don't look so surprised, I looked really angelic at that age...well, everybody looks angelic at that age, don't they? And anyway, my Romeo, haha, I won't forget him in a hurry. He was on the first team at soccer and he'd done something or other like toilet-paper the school staffroom, he was a real rogue, so as punishment he was made to take the lead in the play. He was dead against it. That is until I gave him tongue in one of the kissing scenes and then he just couldn't get enough. The balcony scene, for example. In rehearsal he scaled up it like he was Tarzan, and at the top even beat his chest, shouting 'Ahahhaaahhhh..!!'" Mum's own impression was more akin to Jane than Tarzan, but it sufficed to get her bosom rocking again. "They almost chucked him out for that one. Then he practically ravished me on my deathbed, which I thought was a bit, like, creepy, you know, a bit like necrophilia? Anyway, the Drama teacher actually had to drag him off me, haha..."

I was so enjoying Mum's reminiscences I could have let her go on, but I just had to ask, "So what happened to him?"

"Oh. Well we got married straight after school and we had you..."

I was gob-smacked and it showed.

"You," she said, cupping my chin, "are Romeo and Juliet's love-child." She kissed me on the nose.

For once, I was lost for words. Mum watched my thought processes as evident through my swiveling eyes, my painful expressions and in my almost managing to get a couple of words out of my mouth.

"I...wha..? How...?"

"Yeah. The local paper wanted to do a big piece on it -- you know, with the headline something like 'Shakespeare Got It All Wrong' haha...but the school authorities hushed it up, even though we were in the Upper Sixth and eighteen at the time. Apparently it didn't reflect well on their educational standards. Personally I think it would probably have encouraged far more people to join in, but, who am I?"

By that time I'd brought my mouth under control and said, "Who are you? You're my wonderful, amazing Mum. I've got a better headline..." I sketched out the words in the air: "'Emma Riley IS Juliet.'"

We fell into a tight affectionate embrace.

"So, my Dad...?"

She released me abruptly.

"Oh, him," with a dismissive flick of her wrist, "let's just say he'd have been better off changing his name to Lothario. He had his charms...to which I'd been the first to acquiesce of course...but with all his new-found popularity he felt a need to try them out on anything in a skirt. So in the end I simply booted him out...no loss."

I caressed through her hair. "And not a good role model for me?"

She reached to caress through my own hair, "'What must be shall be.'", she smiled and turned away, paused, then turned back to me.

"You know, if it's the macho bits that turned you on in Shakespeare, then you do know that at least three people in Romeo and Juliet are run through with daggers and swords? And that's not even including those two dying at the end?"

"Yeah?" My interest was piqued.

"Yeah. So the action's all there. The big thing is

why

they killed each other..."

"And why was that?"

"Oh, honor... and a great passion. Once you experience that kind of passion, life can never be the same..." She closed her eyes and smiled to herself.

Mum left the kitchen and I heard her rooting around in one of her cupboards upstairs. When she came back down she was holding in her hands a tattered copy of the play 'Romeo and Juliet'.

She smiled my way and, flicking the copy, said, "Still got all the notes in it, couldn't bear to throw it away."

Then she made herself comfortable in the armchair and began leafing through it and pretty soon she was totally engrossed in the play, at times biting her bottom lip, at times smiling and at others holding her chest in anguish. And, finally, allowing a tear to fall down her cheek.

She closed the copy and sighed, "Kevin, if you only knew the feelings this can evoke..."

"You mean when someone's gutted with a dagger and dies a long and painful death?"