She Wonders

1

Looking back, it was probably a terrible, terrible mistake. She shouldn't have. She really shouldn't have. But Eric was her favourite son, most loving of his mother. With any luck he would see the funny side and she would be able to die a merciful death, with as little cringing as possible!

"Can I marry you instead? This husband's broken!"

Why the hell did she write that? In what mind was she when she wrote that? It took all the courage in the world just to send it, at 1am that morning, sailing on the breeze of three shattering orgasms thinking about fucking him.

But he didn't know that!

Now she was halfway through the workday, and no response. And Sara wondered if he had even read the message. And halfway through the afternoon, as it crawled by at a snail pace, she wondered if he even knew what to say.

By 5pm she would make her way home with an idea of what to text him, in the hopes of wiping that last one from existence. One foul serve simply put right with a good one. That would work, right?

When she got home, Jim was already there, drinking coffee in his armchair by the television. Sara dropped her handbag and slumped back into her seat. His usual greeting lately, nothing but a grunt, was interrupted by a loud PING!

The word Apprehensive was a large and empty word. It spoke largely but still didn't cover the extent of the awkwardness she now felt as she looked into her phone and sought the message reply from Eric, which for the record said:

"Mum you don't need to marry me. I'm yours anyway!"

'What's for tea then?' Jim asked, but turned to see his wife whirling out of her seat and out the door like a woman possessed. Out through the kitchen and out into the back garden, she fled into the shed and slammed the door behind her, just so she could laugh loud and hard.

'Oh thank fucking Christ,' she sighed, utterly relieved and overjoyed at once. Still, with phone in hand, she trembled like a school girl after her first real kiss.

2

'Mum, what's going on?' Eric asked, his voice tinny and distant in her ear.

'Well I'm in the shed,' she offered for no reason at all.

'Why are you in the shed?' he asked.

'I don't quite know?' Why she put it to him like a question neither knew, but it tickled them nonetheless - at least the silliness of it all.

'I'm sorry about that text last night, Eric,' Sara continued, wondering where this would go. 'I wasn't thinking clearly. I am lucky to have you.' But she didn't have him, not the way she wanted, and the anguish of knowing it showed in her voice.

'Is it because of the old man?' There was a loaded question, and the connotations it tempted were all correct.

Exasperated, Sara sighed and nodded to herself. 'Yes.'

'I understand,' he offered. But did he really?

'I'm not sure you do, love, but I'm not sure I can explain why.'

'You mean that you need someone,' Eric jumped straight to his conclusion, and her heart leapt in her chest. 'The way he's not there for you anymore!'

Again she sighed. 'Yes,' she agreed against all odds. 'I guess you do understand. It's driving me bonkers...'

'Well, like I said, you don't have to be married to me. You already have me,' Eric offered. Was he saying now what she thought he was saying? Was he literally offering himself?

'Oh in my dreams, love,' Sara gushed. 'You could do much better than me.'

'Mum, if there was a girl half the woman you are,' he began to say, but stopped. Sara felt her stomach twist. Surely he didn't mean it.

'I don't think you want to be saying things like that to me the way I've been lately. I might jump you, son...'

There was a silence, and then a muffled dry chuckle as Eric laughed to himself. 'I'd be so lucky, mum,' he assured, and quite unbelievably to her ears. 'Dad's clearly past it if he can't appreciate you.'

'Oh now I know you're after something,' Sara laughed helplessly, knees turning to jelly.

The rest of that week lagged horribly, all except the late nights she spent in his bed after Jim was fast asleep, flaccid and lifeless. And Sara wondered if there was anything to those words spoken in secret with Eric.

Were they flirting and did he just not acknowledge it because she was his mother and he couldn't actually see her that way, or was he serious? What had gotten into her lately that she could so comfortably see past the fact that he was her boy?

For all she wondered, that thought had never crossed her mind. Instead she wondered long and hard, for how she might put her feelings and her needs across to him.

3

'How do I say this?' she asked herself. 'How do I tell him what's really going on? How do I hope to say something as ridiculous as "Eric, son, your dad isn't satisfying me anymore - any chance we could maybe fill the hole in my sex life"?

Nothing she could think of saying sounded anything other than absurd; other than the internal dialogues that occurred between them in her erotic midnight interludes where she pleasured herself to the thought of having sex with him.

'I just want to be loved,' she thought. 'I just want something physical. I don't want to feel so lonely and unwanted at this point in my life. And I don't want to ruin my family, or step outside of my family to get it. What do I do?'

John and Sandra, glued at the hips, dropped by on the Friday night to talk to dad, not her; and that left her wondering. Were she or Eric even part of this family? When did they start taking sides? What had she or Eric ever done to deserve this?

Halfway through talking about a holiday trip they were planning up in Scotland, Jim couldn't have been more happy or eager. Almost bitterly Sara interrupted with; 'Will Eric be going?'

John and Sandra just looked at each other, and then dad, and awkwardly back at Sara, who waited patiently as ever. 'Well we haven't asked him?' Sandra replied defensively.

'He never goes anywhere anyway,' John dismissed with a brushing gesture of the hand. Just like that he dismissed his younger brother like dust off the shoulder.

'He's never invited anywhere,' Sara said. 'Not unless I'm the one who invites him.'

'I think John and Sandra can make up their own minds,' Jim spoke up with mild authority.

'Yes, they do just that, don't they?' Sara said painfully and dismissed the three of them before she would lose her temper.

'Where are you going?' Jim called after her.

'Make up your own bloody minds,' Sara said on the tail end of a laboured sigh, and went upstairs to Eric's room. There she lay on his bed, hands fumbling, and looked up at the ceiling until either her hard feelings were gone, or her eldest children were.

'What has become of this family?' she asked the big blue nothing beyond. And it wasn't in her imagination that she actually heard laughter from downstairs shortly after. It was almost like she or Eric didn't even exist anymore.

4

'You again?'

'What's up old man?' Eric greeted his father at the door once more, since his father wouldn't greet him. The irony was lost immediately. If anything was up with the old codger, it wasn't his todger.

This time he didn't wait to be invited in. He was no vampire. This was his home. Nonchalantly Eric breezed past Jim and called out to his mother, who was again upstairs in the bathroom.

'Bloody mummy's boy come to talk about her feelings again,' Jim mumbled on his way back to the living room, his whole body walking in a perpetual slump. The door slammed behind him, leaving Eric wondering what he could possibly have done to deserve the shade thrown at him.

'Hey gorgeous,' he chimed, leaning against the bathroom doorframe. Again there she was, fresh out of the shower. Those were becoming a theme. Dropping towels on the other hand...

'Promise I won't give you a striptease this time,' Sara grinned.

'What kind of promise is that?' Eric asked mischievously as he approached her, arms opening to receive her. They cuddled and kissed on the lips for what seemed a long time. When they parted, her towel fell to the floor once more, completely one-hundred percent accidentally.

But Eric made no attempt to look away. In fact he looked a very long time.

'Eric, darling...'

'Hmm?'

'You're staring,' Sara observed.

'I am,' he agreed.

Her body shook the once with a single exclamation as she considered herself humoured. 'I see,' she replied, making no more effort to cover her modesty. 'Do you really like what you see?'

Eric just smiled at her, but it was honest. Yes indeed he did, and he didn't need black market pills to prove it. 'Stay like that if you want. Don't mind me,' he quipped, scanning her body before capturing her widened eyes.

'Maybe I will,' she teased, tongue in cheek, and then she offered him a sly wink. 'What are you doing tonight?' she then asked, sliding past him in the doorway to reach the bedroom.

Eric flinched, the way his mother - completely nude - brushed up against him, her bare breasts and the light brown nipples rubbing his bare arm as she squeezed by. A naughty look flashed across her face then too.

As she made her way to the bedroom, Eric turned to look, and was pleased by the way her apple-shaped bottom swayed, still firm but with a little extra than he was used to. Again she turned to look at him, that look still in her eyes, and waiting for an answer.

He followed!

'I was going to ask the same thing,' he said, scratching the back of his head when entering her room to watch her dress made him feel like he was intruding. A few times during his younger years his mother relaxed around him when it came to partial nudity, but for the most part she was careful to teach him his boundaries.

Now there were none in that respect. She didn't seem to mind at all. In fact if he didn't know any better he'd think she was getting a thrill out of it. Maybe then he didn't know better after all.

'Tea's done,' she checked off her list, slipping into a flimsy pair of white lace knickers. 'No doubt Jim's done. Other than that I have no plans. Would you like to stay around?'

Eric stood on the opposite side of the bed, looking every which way every other second, clearly nervous and not knowing what to do with himself. Of course every other second his eyes flitted over her body, and it did thrill her.

'Erm...'

In fact she didn't try to hide the fact that she was staring hard at him, trying to gauge his reaction to her sultry little peep show. Being that he filled the view from her side of the bed, it was impossible not to observe the bulge in his khakis.

'I was actually wondering when the last time was that you saw a movie,' Eric broached.

And being that they creased rather easily, khakis seemed made for men without contours, which was not Eric. The material of his pants creased terribly at his crotch now. Sara was not listening...

'Those are nice pants,' she deliberately noted. 'You fill them very well.'

And then what he'd said finally computed. 'I don't get to watch much television, except for what he watches!'

'I don't mean television,' Eric replied. 'I mean; when's the last time you saw a film?'

'Oh!' It had been a long time, especially at the cinema. It was too costly these days, Jim said, and his favourite son and daughter begrudgingly agreed. 'Asking me on a date?'

Eric smiled, watching her now stretch into a matching white lace bra. Damn she looked good, even with the slightest paunch her belly had developed. A few little white stretch marks at her wide hips was all that remained of the evidence suggesting that she'd had three children. She certainly still passed for desirable in his eyes.

'If you want to call it that,' he suggested.

'Hmm, I don't feel like being around people,' Sara said, lolling her head from side to side in her guilty thoughts. 'We could... go and watch a movie,' she suggested on the contrary, and then whispered secretively, 'at your apartment?'

'Sure?'

She smiled, beamed in fact. 'I just wanted to let my hair down tonight,' she assured, despite her choice in underwear. From her wardrobe she then chose a long billowy white lace skirt to match, and a blue short-sleeve to compliment her blonde hair, but first she threw them on the bed.

Their conversation was not over. 'Actually we don't even have to watch a film,' she said, a suddenly contrasting heavy breath setting her shoulders. 'I need to talk to you about something...'

Eric braced himself. 'Sure, whatever you want,' he agreed, 'what is it?'

She could tell him here, but something told her that would be a bad idea. 'We'll talk at your place,' she insisted, and again found herself staring hard. He too was giving her his full attention, and not only from the neck up.

'You go make a coffee and wait for me downstairs while I get dressed and dry my hair, okay?'

She almost regretted saying that, because although she was done talking for now, she wouldn't have minded letting him stay, to watch.

5

Free of their usual restrictions of clips and pins, Sara's greying blonde hair flowed icy-gold down past her shoulders. Having grown up with some pretty "European" entertainment in his youth, he could debate at the moment his mother waltzed into the kitchen - ankles bound in strappy leather sandals - that had Bo Derek bypassed the plastic surgery, this is what she might have looked like.

Sara's high cheeks blushed, her blue eyes dazzling with a much more natural hint of shadow and mascara than girls half her age would ever settle for. The air came alive with the freshly washed scent that followed her.

It was as though Sara came to her son on a floral summer breeze. 'Ready to go?' she asked. He nodded and followed her lead.

'Jim, I'm just popping round to Eric's for a bit, so don't wait up if you're having an early one,' she said after poking her head in through the living room door. He ignored her. And that was fine because she was going to do the same.

And she then drove them to Eric's apartment, where they made their way into the kitchen where Eric had chilled wine waiting in the fridge. Only after she put the glass of lightly-bubbling white to her lips did she confirm her careless guilt for doing so.

'I'm driving, I probably shouldn't,' she said with a careless smile, but it would do for courage. 'It's funny the way our family has gotten, don't you think?'

Eric agreed. She didn't have to explain why, even if he didn't know about the inseparable John and Sandra's not so private getaway. 'It's almost as if there's the three of them and then just the two of us...'

Eric surprised his mother then by putting down his own glass and wrapping her up carefully in his arms. His wide, thick hands held her hips to him as easily as she might hold a small vase full of fragile little flowers.

'I win,' he said with a confident smirk, cocking his head to one side as he studied her delighted reaction.

'Imagine it just being the two of us,' she dreamed, baring her pearly teeth in a smile and staring up at the kitchen ceiling. Eric patted his mother on the bottom then, surprising her again. Slowly the nerves began to come alight within, once again.

'You'd have to kick the old man out,' Eric humoured. 'This place barely fits me.'

'You'd have to give up your easy women,' Sara forewarned.

Eric began to protest with; 'What have you got against-

'But you'd have me,' she overrode him. 'Wouldn't that be enough?'

Sheepishly he looked down upon her, into her eyes, although he could also see down the low-cut neck of her short-sleeve tee and was captivated all the same. 'What do you think I do with these women?' he asked. 'I don't sit and drink cocoa with them and talk about old man problems.'

She had to laugh at that. There he was again. She could not escape Jim wherever she went, nor the predicament that came with Jim being useless in bed.

'Here goes,' she thought, feeling her stomach knot. She took a deep breath and sighed warmly against her son's face.

6

'I don't want to leave him,' she confessed. 'It's just talk. But as much as this family drives me up the wall sometimes, I can't get old with the thought of destroying us on my conscience. And I can't get old alone...'

'What's the matter mum?' Eric asked; his concern palpable.

'But I can't be without love either, Eric,' she went on, then draining her glass dry. The cold wine soothed the burning inside, but soon enough it came back in a vengeful wave. 'And I see you here, just as lonely as me; and just as...' She paused for thought and found a deep emotional ditch instead.

'Out of place...'

Eric held her tighter, rocking her slightly as if coaxing the words out of her, and as he did she looked away, not knowing how she would get there - how she would cross that bridge!

'Why have you never settled down?' she asked. 'You must be lonely!'

'Sometimes,' he admitted. His mother clacked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and then cuddled up against him in consolation.

'I feel it the way you looked at me,' she managed to say, and was surprised that she did not freak out once the words were out in the air. In fact the air seemed clearer.

'God, the way you look at me!' she declared from the pit of her stomach with such unrequited longing. Eric pulled away, only slightly, so that he could study her.

'That's not because I'm lonely, mum,' he said softly. 'That's because I love you.'

Sara's heart grew heavier, faster. Inside she felt elated with the release of adrenaline and deep down truth. Was this truly happening? 'And the way you looked at me in the bathroom and the bedroom earlier?'

'Because you're beautiful, and because you were happily just being you, more than you've ever shown me before,' he admitted freely.

'Well,' she agreed with a nod and cleared her throat. 'I like the way you look at me. It makes me feel wanted.' And then a darkness overcame her. 'But as much as I want to love my favourite son, I can't expect you to want me, can I?' she asked, before trailing off.

'Not the way I want you to...'

'You want me?' In so many words, he had finally broken that thick, seemingly impenetrable ice, and the heat within her radiated like wildfire.

Sara nodded certainly. 'Could you want me?'

Eric's mouth dried fast. He flashed his mother a smile as though silently mock-scolding her - calling her naughty and every relative synonym. Guiding her to spin around slowly with him, he poured them two more glasses of wine from the kitchen worktop and quickly downed his own.

'I could,' he hinted, but not yet ready to see the reaction in her eyes. 'I could wish that somebody would satisfy you the way he can't, just to make you happy, and if that somebody...'

Adrenaline now flowed freely, surged through their veins like fuel to the fire, and Sara's breathing was becoming shallower. One hand roamed down the strong arm of her son closest to her, and then came to rest at the small of his back.

'Eric,' she addressed delicately; 'I hope I'm reading this right or I might drive into a lamppost on the way home.'

Eric uttered a laugh, still the concern in his eyes as he looked at her. Hopefully that would never happen. He knew she was joking, but fate was a horrible player to tempt with games such as these.

'I'd be the luckiest woman in the world if that man was you, even if you're my son. I love you too much to care!'

Eric inched closer, releasing a sigh from his heavy chest. The smile dissipated, but his feelings inside did not. He had always loved her more than anything, to the extent that it might once upon a time have forced his siblings further away.

'Me too,' he said, and mutually they nodded, eyes fixed. For a long while they just hugged and held each other, letting go of the tension that now gripped them. And then when they parted there was a curious smile on his mother's face.

And she wondered; 'Would you really want to be that man?'