Do you remember last Christmas Eve? Outside my house looked like a post card. The snow was still clean and the air was crystalline. Mom and I were laughing after too much eggnog as we started opening presents. As she unwrapped the last glittering red box, tears suddenly filled her eyes. It was just an iPod she'd been thinking about buying. She hugged me and then kissed me, and then hugged me hard. I thought I heard her sniffle. I knew it wasn't the iPod and I said, "What's wrong mom?"
She said, "It's nothing," and kept holding on. Her body moved against me as the crying became evident. I became uncomfortable. I asked her again why she was crying and she didn't say anything. It wasn't like her not to tell me what was bothering her.
Everybody has at least one story in them. I guess that's where this one began. Mine was a commonplace biography until I was nineteen. Like most, it had its share of the extremes, and an abundance of the boring stuff that happens in between.
Kids have better and worse relationships with their parents; mine was better. Well with my mom anyway, since my father had died when I was six months old. I always assumed she'd be there for me, to tell me what she thought, and listen to whatever I had to say. It never occurred to me that anything was off limits between us.
It wasn't long after Christmas that her drinking got noticeably heavier and mom seemed to look at me in a way I couldn't read, or didn't want to. I guess, without realizing it, I was looking at her a little differently also, because I began to notice that sometimes she wasn't wearing a bra. Her nipples were quite evident through her tops and I wondered if I just hadn't been observant or she had just started doing it. I decided that it must have been a recent thing because mom was pretty full up there, so I couldn't have missed that.
In a matter of weeks things began to crystallize. It was a Saturday night and we had both gone to bed. I was in a deep sleep when I heard the intercom on my phone ring. I didn't know where I was until I heard her voice. She said in soft slow separate words, "Maybe you should call 911. Then she said, "No, wait..." the phone must have dropped and I rushed to her room.
I heard her in the bathroom being sick and I knocked and said, "Are you all right mom?"
She said, "I'm okay...I'm okay...go back to bed. I had a bad stomachache, but it passed now. I'm all right honey, just go to bed, I'll see you in the morning."
I was worried and got up at six and went to her room. I opened the door noiselessly and saw her curled in a fetal position with her nightgown hiked up to her panties. I was distracted as I followed the graceful curve from her ankle to the top of her thigh. I remember thinking, 'What nice legs.' I then became aware of how deeply she was sleeping by the sounds of her hard breathing, so I left her to rest. I was glad it was a weekend because she didn't wake until noon. In all the years we were with Carl, she'd never gotten up after seven.
Mom had never re-married, but we did live with Carl from when I was eleven to seventeen. Mom always asked me to get along with him as a favor to her, and for the most part, I did. He wasn't a bad guy, but I never saw him as a dad any more than he saw me as a son. I was just the kid who happened to be there, and the kid she bought things for. In the beginning he said things like, "How many shoes does one kid need," but after he while he didn't say anything and gave mom whatever she wanted. I guess he was getting what he wanted, in addition to the fact that mom kept his house spotless and was a great cook. I never realized how good until I started eating out with my friends.
When I thought about it, I realized that it was after mom had broken it off with Carl that she began to change, and I also realized that the Christmas episode was just one more incident that I could put with a long list of others. Even the anti-depressants she had tried didn't do much to lift her spirits.
So I wasn't as surprised as I could have been by the 'Stomachache' business. When she finally woke up the following day, she said, "Honey, sit down, I have to talk to you."
I looked at her and I could see the anguish in her face and I said, "What's going on mom?"
"I never thought I would tell you this," she said, "but I'm stuck in my head and maybe this will let me out." I had no idea where she was going with all of it. "I couldn't stay with Carl anymore...because..." I never could understand why she was with 'Old Carl,' as I liked to call him to piss him off, except that he paid the bills.
So I said, "I don't blame you for dropping him mom; I never saw much affection between you anyway. You should have gotten out a long time ago."
She said, "Honey, it's not about Carl, it's about me. You're right that I should have, except that, well, he took care of us and sent you to school." I certainly didn't judge her for that because I knew how difficult life was for her before he came along.
Here's where the conversation got weird. She said, "But the main reason was how I feel about you."
That didn't compute and my face must have said, "What?" She went on. "I've been unhappy about myself for a long time now...how I feel...how I shouldn't feel...that's why last night I took too many pills." My alarm must have been evident. "Baby don't worry..."she said. "I was wrong...that's why I threw them up before they affected me too much."
All I said was "MOM?"
She read what I was thinking and said, " I won't do it again I promise love, just... listen to me...I've always told you everything." She hesitated a moment and said, "I've never been that interested when it came to being physical with men, not with your father, not with Carl, but I feel something I shouldn't when I think about you...when I'm with you..."
Holy Maloney, what was I hearing? After a speechless moment, something struck me. "Mom," I said, "was it satisfying being with Carl...or my father?"
She had no idea what I meant. The first thing she said was, "They were both nice to me most of the time."
I said, "No, mom, I mean personally, you know...sex?"
"What do you mean?" she asked.
I must have raised my eyebrows when I asked her, "Did they make you come?" I couldn't be any more direct that that, but I had always said to her what I was thinking.
"Uhh, I don't know... I don't think so."
I said, "Mom did you ever have an orgasm? There are a lot of women out there who never have."
"I guess not, "she said. Mom was always like that; if you asked her a question, she'd answer. Not that I was such an experienced lover, but I realized that she'd only been with two guys and neither of them knew enough to stimulate her clit until she came.
"Mom, you just haven't met the right guy..."
"I don't think that's it...I can't stop thinking about...us..."
I wasn't ready for that. There I was, a horny nineteen-year old, and a nice looking woman was practically asking me to do...something...and just one little drawback - she was my mother. I loved her more than anyone in the world, but I just never thought of having sex with her.
Now that's not to say I never thought about her in sexual terms. To be crass, the term I'm thinking of would be 'Tits'. Like I said before, you can't miss seeing that my mother's breasts are full; and I guess big, voluptuous, and all those kinds of words, fit. Her cleavage showed whenever it got the chance. I had no guilt about sneaking peaks whenever I could, but in my head it had nothing to do with having sex with her.
She said, "I shouldn't have told you...but..."
"It's okay mom, I just need to process this, and we have to talk about...maybe you should see someone..."
"No," she said, "We'll work it out, we always did, didn't we baby?"
"Sure." I said, but had no idea how. That is until I had one of my crazier notions. In the middle of the night I'm thinking to myself, 'I could give her an orgasm.' I know it sounds ridiculous to tell you that I wasn't really thinking about it sexually, that it was more that the pill business shook me up and I just wanted my mom feel better, but that's what I was thinking at the time.