Note:
All characters are above the age of 18, fictional, and adult where adult content is concerned. Sorry for my long absence. I died, you see, but I'm okay now. However my absences are likely to be more frequent/longer for the foreseeable future. I hope this fills the gap until the next offering finds its way.
*****
The Letter...
Dear Mom;
I love you. I've always loved you, and I always will. You mean the world to me and I can't imagine life without you. This is hard for me to write, and as I do I struggle to think of anything other than what I'm thinking about you - and about me and you together - and what I feel for you, anxiety eats away at me as time crawls by so painfully slowly!
I love you as my mother, but that is only partly the reason my heart pounds brutally against my chest, as if to punish me for feeling the way I do. I love you as a woman, too, the way it seems that no man ever seemed to want to. Or maybe that should be; I wish I could love you like a woman wants to be loved. I dream about loving you, even though I know I shouldn't.
There was no other way to tell you. For years I've thought about you in this way, felt for you this way, and knew that I shouldn't. I hid it, I naturalised it, and hoped that it would go away. I never stopped loving you, just being me and letting us be the way we've always been. But it was a struggle. So I'm telling you now, because it's too much to bear alone.
I daydream about you and me in bed, making love. I think about us having sex a lot. It's a ridiculous thrill to imagine. I don't know where it all came from. I don't know if it's normal. Maybe you feel or think the same things sometimes. If you don't, then please never mention this. Act as though it never happened or I swear I'll die.
I'm just telling you because I feel I have to, and because I need to not go crazy over feelings that might be utterly stupid. But remember that I love you, mom. And please try not to murder me once you've read this. I might die from that too!
Love always;
Anthony
1
'Oh my heart,' Maddie muttered in the silence of their kitchen, the letter trembling in her hand, but she could not tear her eyes away; not for a minute. She remained glued to the spot, though her feet seemed unsure of the solid tile flooring beneath them. Still, despite her sudden faintness, for the impossibility of her shock, Maddie couldn't make this about her. She couldn't not love the boy, or care for his feelings.
'Bless him, what is he going through?' she asked the silence. It didn't answer, as expected, and so she counted on herself, to try to empathise with him. How could he want her like this - Maddie who had long ago gradually set aside the woman to become the mother, the lonely single mother whose life no man wanted part of?
How her own heart pounded from that day, and from the moment her eyes flitted over some of those words, and as her imagination fuelled by those words conjured up such images, until the time sleep finally took her much later that night. She had to steady herself, all of her 5'8" against the counter-top where the boiling hot kettle steamed from its spout, and wait to catch her breath.
And the seed that had grown and flowered inside her then 17 year old son, was now planted within her too, because for how screwed up his mind must have been - how twisted his heart and how helter-skelter that damned anxiety of his, and his pure, unspoilt virgin heart - there was no denying his love, his passion, his raw need (like hers once), and his eloquent way with words. But it could never happen. These things could never be more than a boy's dream.
Yes, she understood that boys dreamed of these things. Boys, according to some, even grew to seek and to marry their mothers in some ways. A boy's mother was the first adult woman in his life, the first sexual creature. But that's where Maddie became confused, because Anthony had become in time the end of her sexuality. What did he really see in her that she couldn't see in herself?
It was a battle the night he came home, expecting who knew what, summoning the courage to act as both his mother and his absent father. Something told Maddie deep down that she was going to end up being his personal doctor too, because this was going nowhere near any family therapist. She'd find another way.
Good lord, imagine dragging your own pubescent son to a doctor to talk about the wrongs of wanting to fuck his mother. Imagine the burning shame of a therapist trudging through your family secrets every week, talking about it non-stop. The thought was ten times more terrifying than the matter itself, so no, that wasn't going to happen.
But thank the heavens, he had taken it extremely well, because Anthony was his mother's son, and because even the part of him that was still Bill Calloway - magically disappearing insurance salesman extraordinaire - had achieved the impossible and grew to respect and be loyal to his mother.
In appearance he was more like Bill too, with his sandy brown hair and hazel eyes, as opposed to her paler skin and intense dark chocolate contrasts. Only their hands appeared much the same as she reassuringly held his in hers, ever faithful and unconditional.
'Anthony, I do understand,' she remembered saying all those years ago, despite her confusion. 'I do understand. Girls go through something similar with their fathers sometimes, but there's a reason it isn't talked about.'
'I know, mom,' he said blankly, but not out of ignorance. Shame was not alone in him. He was exhausted with worry for what he had done, for what he was experiencing. She understood that much as clear as the day.
'I am so flattered that you love me and that you can tell me, and you're perfectly healthy in every way, I'm certain of that. But you'll make the right woman lucky when it's time. It's just that she can't be me...'
'I know.'
'I'm your mother, sweetheart,' she gently reasoned with a kind smile. 'Can I give you a hug?' Maddie asked then, before the silence between them chilled to a freeze.
And only for the briefest of moments did Anthony's eyes meet hers. He couldn't look at her, not right away. Still, his body language spoke good enough of his feelings, as he leaned hopelessly into his mother and dared to give as good as he got; squeezing her so hard.
Little did she imagine just how intensely Anthony felt that moment, and the boy was dying inside like neither of them could have believed. 'I'll give you this much, you do know how to write a beautiful love letter,' she whispered in his ear and was surprised to hear him laugh. It felt hot against the flesh of her shoulder, even through her blouse. And Anthony died a little more.
We'll be okay, she thought. We'll get through this. This wasn't the end of it, not so soon. You didn't just switch these things off, but they'd been through worse.
And that was Maddie and Anthony Stevens eight years ago.
2
