What it is to be a mother.
And at that, a mother who one day, like it was nothing, insisted that her socially awkward virgin son practiced on her pussy!
It was unplanned. It just happened. Michael couldn't control himself enough around girls to have a relationship with one. Karen thought she was helping in her own frank and straightforward way.
She figured that a mother should be there for her son the way his father wasn't, to love unconditionally and to help in any way that she could. She didn't count on the fallout of what she had coaxed to reality. And she hadn't counted on her attraction for Michael and their connection to have been so deep.
Life had gone on as normally as it could have, under the circumstances. What is normal anyway? Any chance of a normal life was ruined when Michael was three years old. Now he was eighteen and Karen was forty two. No relationship since had lasted.
She wasn't a typical beauty, and she wasn't the most socially apt, but she was always a most sexual creature and that side to her had been sacrificed for much of her life since motherhood. But still she had Michael and he was worth it, every step of the way.
So when that relationship seemed to come to a head, a month after their educational encounter of sorts, both of them flew headlong into the arguments and the tantrums. They'd had no problem moving on up until then. After that it seemed that more lay beneath the surface than either had admitted, or even expected.
Michael had gone into a short-lived relationship with a girl from college. Karen had tried getting back into the dating game but couldn't find anything promising, not even in the bedroom department. Their family seemed headed for ruin until the end of Michael's relationship, when his girlfriend had turned out to be a serial cheat and one who liked to play with boys' minds.
Gradually, Michael broke under pressure and returned home, his face streaked with burning tears, and into the arms of his mother. It was most welcome. Karen could never have forgiven herself if they had driven each other any further apart.
'I love you mom, I'm sorry I acted like an asshole,' he cried into her neck, holding on tight. She told him that she loved him too, naturally. She assured him that everything would be fine, that she was here for him no matter what.
'I'm sorry, sweetheart,' she said after letting him cling to her a while. The clock struck eleven at night and the house was otherwise shrouded in quiet darkness. 'I'm glad you don't hate me.'
'Never!'
'It's been a long time coming but we really should talk. Please?'
'I don't think I can right now,' he said, wiping the wet from his blurred eyes.
'It doesn't have to be now,' she disarmed, 'no pressure; I think you've had enough. How about a coffee to neaten you up a little?'
'You look tired Michael so let's not torture each other,' Karen said. The clock now struck midnight. They had made small talk about the things that had happened around them. 'I just want to make it quick. What we did is in the past, but I didn't realise it would cause such high emotions. But we're both hormonal people so I suppose I overlooked the odds in that respect. But where we could have done it better, we got carried away with our own lives and I think that got in the way. I'm sorry, you know I love you. It won't happen again. At least tell me how you're feeling.'
'A little bruised,' Michael admitted sorely. He meant emotionally, despite things coming to blows between he and a long trusted friend of his that the little bitch had turned against him. The fight didn't last any more than five punches. And it didn't matter that Stevie walked away unscathed. He'd learn when she would play him off against some other idiot. Soon enough...
'But it wasn't because of us,' he explained. 'It was because that bitch Eva tried to manipulate me. She tried? She succeeded. She's ruined everything. I thought I was just paranoid at first, but...'
'Go on,' Karen encouraged with a gentle pat of the hand against the back of his. Then she took hold and didn't let go.
'I don't know how to say this without going back "there" and I know we don't want to go back "there",' he stressed. So she encouraged him anyway, because better out than in.
'All the time I was with her, I was trying to replace you and I knew I couldn't. How can I even begin to replace my own mom, and with a cheating slut like her? It messed with my head. And then all I wanted was you, because I couldn't compare and I've basically been going out of my mind ever since.'
Karen raised a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes to try to block out the shame. What had she done to his beautiful mind? Was it her? Or was it the bitch?
'Oh my god, Michael,' she whispered, opening her eyes to see him again. 'I thought I knew something about it but I had no idea.'
'I couldn't get you out of my head, mom. And there we were pushing each other away. I think I was falling for you. I felt so ashamed.'
'Don't be. I'm beyond flattered. But little old me?' she asked.
'You're not old, mom,' he said with a tired and resigned smile that barely broke the dark in his eyes. 'But can we drop it for now? I'm exhausted.'
Karen seconded that. This business was exhausting but she would never sleep another wink in her life if that were possible, just so she could protect him. She stood up and drew him into her arms once more, hugging him close but not too tight.
He didn't let go for a long time. And she wanted so badly to tell him that she felt the same, but she couldn't. Not right now. It wouldn't be fair on her son.
'It's hard,' she said finally. 'Love is hard. You learn from your pain and move on and don't make the same mistakes, at least not more than ten or fifty times until they're worn to nothing. You go get some sleep. Weekend tomorrow!'
She didn't sleep for a long time. She lay awake in the night listening to her heart hammering with all the power of her love, her dread, her guilt and her uncertainly all at once.
And the anger at the way any girl would treat her boy - she could not begin to fathom what kind of urban trash brought their child up to act that way. Her love may have become unconventional to say the least, over the past month, but she had taught her son to respect women as the women they were.
Now what was that worth?
In his eyes, no woman would be worth half as much as his mom. They wouldn't have that promise of unconditional love, nor the bond they had. And then her mind strayed to the sex between them that one fateful day.
Oh lord the sex!
Her hand moved down across her abdomen and came to rest on the neatly trimmed patch just above where she so suddenly ached for him, her son.
Then, no, she thought. Don't be so weak!
But that little voice returned and with it she whispered and murmured sweetly into the dawn.
'I can't believe I slept so long,' Karen remarked, sleepy eyed. She walked into his room just past twelve to find him barely out of his own slumber, no doubt naked beneath the sheets as usual. When the pyjamas went all those years back, nothing else took their place.
She was wearing nothing but a white vest and a pair of loose shorts, which she wore only to get from bedroom to bathroom. Michael liked what he saw, especially the Good Morning greeting that the erect nipples of her defiant G-cup breasts were displaying.
