Maternal Solstice

It wasn't something that I had fantasized about, nor planned. It was one of those cause-and-effect chains that was obvious in retrospect, but not at the time. It probably had roots; at my sister's wedding my mother had pulled me aside and confided somewhat drunkenly, "You know, the way you dance really turns me on " I was sixteen at the time, and found her observation generally disgusting, not only because I was a lousy dancer; she was an old lady, I was a teenager.

Five years later, I was a young adult, and she was a middle age woman. We both loved my father; this happened despite that. It had nothing to do with psychological issues, or resentment, or sexual frustration. It was just something that occurred in the quiet of a three bedroom ranch house in the middle of the Great Plains, and while neither one of us expected it, neither one of us would ever undo it either.

The night began typically; I picked my mother up at her workplace after getting off at my own. We were sharing a ride that summer because it was convenient; we both worked twenty miles from home, but within two miles of each other. I was doing an internship for a venture capital firm before starting graduate school at Wharton in the fall. The rides to and from work were generally quiet. I wasn't big on small talk, and she didn't generally have much to say on the way home. Perhaps nothing would have happened at all if her blouse had been fully buttoned. But the fact is, the third button on her blouse was undone and gapping, and as we made the twenty mile drive home, it became somewhat of a game with me to see what forbidden fruits I could glimpse through the open tunnel.

I don't know whether to say my mom was pretty or not – she was my mom. You could tell she had been pretty as a young girl, and age had neither punished her brutally, nor been overly generous; she looked perhaps three or four years younger than her age, but still old enough to have a third child who was past twenty. She was blessed with centerfold breasts, a genetic predisposition that my sisters were both thankful for. She hadn't gotten heavy with age; nor would you ever describe her as model thin. When I actually saw her naked, she had a little pooch in her stomach that was rather erotic; it just made her look very real without making her look fat. She looked like a healthy woman, with all of the French curves in all the appropriate places. So I would never feel comfortable labeling her with an easy descriptor like "beautiful", or "sexy", or "hot". Her copper hair and perceptive eyes warranted a more nuanced assessment. "Attractive" fit and maybe even "alluring", but only for someone who had a particular fondness for her set of features. As we drove, I kept one eye on the road, but, couldn't help but glancing over every thirty seconds or so to check out the gap between her blouse buttons, and try to see what I wasn't supposed to be seeing, which was a significant portion of her right breast, enveloped by a brassiere.

When we got home, I fixed her a seven/seven (seven up and Seagram's seven) which was her drink of choice at the time. This was a ritual; she rarely began unwinding conversationally until after her first - and normally only - drink. This night was a bit unusual; my father was traveling out of town on a business trip, and it was just she and I. My dad didn't travel often; once every three or four months. I waited for her to change clothes to see what dinner plans were; we often ate different things - things my father didn't like - when he traveled.

She came out in jeans and a tee shirt, and her drink was almost gone. I asked her what she wanted to do for dinner, and her response indicated indifference. This was unusual - she almost always felt the responsibility to fix something for us, and usually had a plan to do so. I asked her if she'd had a bad day, and she nodded that it was both long and stressful, although she never did tell me why. She was the accounts receivable manager for a medium sized corporation, and sometimes badgering customers for money when they had none could be draining. Without any ulterior motives, I suggested that she go take a long hot bath, and I would worry about making dinner. It was a sign of her residual stress level that she readily agreed, because she knew my culinary capabilities at the time consisted of warming up pork and beans, and frying hamburger. She actually seemed grateful for my offer, and said that a hot bath would feel very nice.

Mom went off in her direction and I started thinking about what I might make for dinner. I looked though the pantry for several minutes for something to suggest itself as a meal. After examining the same four shelves for the fifth time, I realized with some mild guilt that I still had no clue what was in the pantry, because I was fixated on the stolen image of my mom's boob, and what both her boobs might look like if they were unencumbered. I had guilt because this was my mother I was thinking about, and I had grown up with the clear understanding that these thoughts were wrong. The guilt was mild because, over the course of time I had discovered that not only did these thoughts not feel wrong, they actually felt pretty damn good. Of course, with my father gone, and my mother sitting naked in a garden bathtub twenty five feet away, this was the perfect storm of the wrong time to be having thoughts like these. The devil sitting on my shoulder began whispering suggestions about coming up with a viable reason to barge in to the bathroom.

The empty seven/seven glass was my inspiration. I refilled it, walked to the bathroom door, and hesitated. I listened to make sure I could hear the sounds of my mother splashing. I started to knock, and stopped. I started to open the door, and chickened out. I took a calming breath, and then, like leaping into a swimming pool even when you know the water is going to be cold, I just turned the door handle and walked in.

My mom's reaction was both indignant and curious. I caught a brief impression of her red pubic bush before she threw a washcloth over it, and she folded her left arm across her breasts, covering most of them. She looked at me curiously. "Do you need something?" she asked neutrally.

I held the seven/seven in front of her at arm's length. "I brought you another drink," I explained. Her expression softened, and she smiled. "Thank you," she replied. "I would like that very much. Just put it there on the side of the tub."

This was a turning point. I hadn't gotten what I came for – a good look at my mom – nor had I thought things through enough to know how I should respond to her common sense instructions. I froze like a marble statue and did nothing. My mom's smile faded, as she looked me in the eye. With a brief look of disappointed resignation, she extended her left arm for the whiskey. She took a sip, then held the glass in both hands and rested it on her stomach. She closed her eyes, pulled the washcloth away from her bush, and sighed contentedly. "That's good," she conceded.

I don't know how long we remained like that – ten seconds, thirty seconds – but she gave me a generous amount of time to appreciate the way she looked before she changed tones. "Okay," she said parentally, without opening her eyes. "I'm taking a bath, and I would appreciate some privacy. Is there anything else you need?" Her tone of dismissal was unmistakable.

I remained leaning against the bathroom vanity, unable to respond and unwilling to leave. Her breasts were definitely large, but they were perfectly proportional to the rest of her. They were full without being fat. Sitting with her back inclined, they touched each other, sagged a little, and swayed slightly when she breathed. Her nipples were brown, and seemed as big around as one of my fingers. She took another sip of her drink and placed her arm up on top of her head. The faint rust shadow of emerging stubble showed in the hollow of her armpit. She opened one eye and looked at me staring back at her. This time she spoke with clear irritation. "Please don't tell me that I am so failed as a parent that my only adult son is morally bankrupt and unnaturally attracted to the sight of his naked mother?"

That broke through my mental fog. "No," I stammered. "No. Sorry. I...just....got distracted..." I gulped. My voice was working but my feet still weren't. "I'm going." I looked again at her entire length, her knees poking up from the bathwater, the bathwater just covering her navel, small droplets of water glistening off her breasts, the look of relaxation on her face, and I forced my feet to come unglued from the floor. I opened up the door and was halfway through when my mother spoke again. I stopped with my back to her. "This is a very odd feeling," she said, the irritation gone, replaced by a tone she normally used with friends and peers.

"Drinking in the bathtub?" I asked, without turning.

"No." She gathered her thoughts briefly. "I should feel disgusted at the way you were just looking at me, and instead, I have butterflies in my stomach. It's been a long time since someone looked at me with that kind of desire" she replied.

My blood pressure skyrocketed to about 180 over 120. "I'll go work on dinner," I said, pulling the door closed behind me.

My mom emerged from her bath twenty minutes later. She was wearing a heavy pink terrycloth robe, belted securely at the waist. Her hair was combed out, but still damp. She smelled clean. "What did you decide on for dinner?" she asked, sniffing the air experimentally as she walked into the kitchen. She put her empty drink glass in the sink.

"Tacos?" I responded as both a reply and a question, hoping she would indicate her approval. "Even I can brown hamburger, and that's about all you have to cook. The rest is just chopping up stuff."

My mom smiled, either at my accurate assessment of my kitchen skills, or in approval of my choice of entrée, but either way, she said, "That sounds fine."

I pointed at her empty tumbler. "Can I make you another?" I offered.

She crinkled up her nose and titled her head. "Are you trying to get me drunk?"

I put my palms up, away from my body. "No, no ulterior motives, not trying to lead you down the path of debauchery, just wanted to give you a chance to get tipsy without worrying about being judged, if you so desired."

My mom did a double take. "When did you get so eloquent?" she laughed. "You make me feel like I am missing out on a huge opportunity." She paused for a moment. "Yeah," she said, sitting down at the kitchen table, "I would have another, and I know you won't judge me. I like that."

I poured it and placed it in front of her. "Eat in about twenty minutes?" I asked.

She nodded. "Sounds good."

I turned the oven on to 350, turned the meat on low, and poured myself a little bit of Seagram's in the bottom of a juice glass. I sat down across the table from her, and waited for the oven to preheat. My mother arched her eyebrows at me. "My little boy drinks whiskey neat? Do I need to worry about you becoming an alcoholic?"

I thought about her question, and shrugged. "If you want. You're going to worry about something, anyway – might as well be that."

She smiled at me, and then broke eye contact. "What I said to you in the bathroom earlier...." she started, looking down at the table, and running her hands randomly across its surface, "That's not something I want you to remember about me....I don't know what possessed me to say that."

I could not hold back a chuckle. She looked up, startled that her heartfelt apology was not being somberly received. "Mom, sorry to tell you this, but I'll relive that statement every day of my life, as long as I have a functioning brain. That was not something I ever want to forget."

She shook her head and started to respond, but then stopped. She sipped her drink pensively. I checked the oven; it had only made it up to 275. Finally, my mom shook her head again. "I can't think of anything to say to you that you would consider relevant. There's just so much you don't understand."

"About....?" I couldn't help asking.

She shrugged. "Life." She saw the frustration register on my face. "I forgot, that's all. You are too young to understand intimacy, and I pretended you could for a selfish moment. It was stupid of me, and I wish I hadn't said it."

I got a little ruffled at that. "I understand intimacy."

Her smile was warm, but her tone was condescending. " I know you think you do, Honey, but you have to understand, at your age, what you think is intimacy is just a series of chemical reactions. Nothing more, nothing less. You have as much free will regarding sexual response as sodium and chlorine do regarding salt."

"I don't think that's true!" I was frankly getting a little defensive at this point.

She looked back at me as if deciding how best to respond. She seemed to be waging some kind of inner debate. She must have reached a conclusion, because her face cleared, and she tossed back her drink in two gulps. Shrugging her shoulders, she got up from her chair, and walked around the table toward me. As she was walking, she loosened the belt that held her robe tightly closed. She stopped about two feet away from me and looked me in the eye. "What condition is your dick in?"

"What?" I asked, confusion mixing with irritation.

"Your penis," my mother clarified. "The appendage between your legs. What condition is it in? Rather soft, and worm like, or standing at attention?"

"Soft", I confessed, although I would not stoop to agreeing with wormlike.

"Count to fifteen," my mother instructed. She bent over at the waist, and placed her palms on the outside of my hips, right where my thighs ended, fingers splayed inward. Her robe hung open invitingly, giving me the clear and startling view that the only thing she was wearing under the robe was a pair of blue bikini underwear. Her breasts hung down in gravitational splendor. She slowly moved her head toward mine and made as if to whisper something in my ear. Instead, I felt the warm moistness of her tongue massaging my inner ear, and combined with the immediate sound of gentle slurping, I sighed audibly and deeply.

"....fourteen, fifteen," I uttered. As I reached fifteen, my mom moved her palms moved inward until her fingers were resting on my now fully erect penis. "I'd now describe this more like a flashlight than a worm" she concluded. The electric feel of her fingers on my privates diverted another pint of blood to that region. "Whoa," she said, with mock admiration. "Maybe more like a rolling pin than a flashlight."

She stood up and returned to her chair. "That is what I meant," she said. "What you are feeling right now is not intimacy."

I started to stand up to protest her conclusion, but I knew my obvious woody would just be a not-so-funny underscore of her assertion. I remained seated, gathered my thoughts, and paused a bit before speaking. "That proves nothing. Females respond to sexual stimulus, too; what does that biological fact have to do with intimacy?"

"Females get a hard-on?" my mother asked.

"Females get wet," I countered.

"But we can control it," my mom said with emphasis. "That's my point. Women don't automatically get wet at the sight of a naked man. Men immediately get erect at the sight of a naked woman."

"What you did to me was a whole lot more than sight," I countered.

"True, but we both know if I would have just undone my robe and stood in front of you the results would have ultimately been the same. I just sped things up a bit"

"I can make you wet." I bluffed.

"Of course you can't. That's the point I'm failing spectacularly at making with you. Now, if you physically rub me down there, yes, there is a mechanism left over from our days as arboreal animals that will kick in to make sure I am ready. But if the question is left solely to my human emotional state, you will find me as dry as the Sahara Desert."

"Is that a challenge?" I asked.

She shrugged. "No. It's a fact of life. If you want to treat it like a challenge, feel free. But in return, when you fail, I expect you to have the character to tell me that I have convinced you instead of continuing to argue against anything that you don't like to hear. "

"How long do I have?" I asked, always seeking a competitive edge.

"Until the taco shells are warm?" my mother suggested. "I'm getting hungry."

"Okay," I agreed. "But what's the proof? If I feel you, you'll say it's a mechanical response."

"You'll just have to trust me. I'll tell you if I feel wet." my mother promised. I didn't believe this for a minute. She would drown before she would admit she was wet and I was right.

"How about this," I suggested. "Do this. Put your feet up on your chair, right next to your butt." She complied with some uncertainty, but it had the effect of pointing her vulva directly at my face, and stretching her bikini underwear tightly over top of it. I wasn't certain women got wet enough to make their panties wet, but it was a better hedge than "trust me".

"I'm going to put the shells in for eight minutes," I warned, announcing both dinner time, and the length of my opportunity. I have to admit, she looked pretty damned good in that position. Her thighs were wider than a model would want, but her ankles and calves were thin, and the thin bikini underwear showed the outlines of her genitalia in sky blue detail.

I stuck the cookie sheet with the shells into the oven and set the timer for nine minutes. Frankly, at this point, I didn't really care if the taco shells spontaneously combusted; I needed all the time I could get.

I sat down next to my mom, and stared at the two thirds of her tits that were hanging out of her still loose robe.

I shifted my gaze down to the area between her thighs, where the thin blue nylon stretched across two inches of forbidden zone for the length of her crotch. Several stray red pubic hairs volunteered from the edges of her panties. I could make out the shadow of her bush above. I didn't really know what to say, but I knew as long as I remained silent, time was on her side. What had she said in the bathroom, about feeling butterflies? That I'd made her feel desirable.

"I don't know a lot of things about you that I wish I did," I started. "I don't know if you realize how attractive you are. I don't know if you realize how much I'd like to reach out right now and touch the smoothness of your thighs. I don't know what excites you, and I'm not likely to stumble on it in the next eight – seven minutes." I looked at her eyes. She was interested, but that was all. "You've always inspired me, Mom. You've inspired me to be a good student and get good grades. You've inspired me to get along with people, and develop social skills. You've inspired me to be responsible, and to think about people other than myself. You probably know all of that. What you probably don't know is that because you inspire me in all those other ways, you inspire me to lay awake at night with my dick in my hand, wishing you were lying beside me and I could hold you and tell you these things. And when I'm by myself in the middle of the night, there is no chemistry; there's only imagination in the darkness." My mom shifted a little, but I couldn't tell if it was in response to what I said, or just to get more comfortable. "It's gotten worse as I've gotten older, Mom. It used to be that sometimes, if I saw you in a bathing suit in the summertime, or you were sitting suggestively in a nightgown, I would have go somewhere right then and beat off. But now, I come with you in my mind almost every night, sometimes more than once. Do you ever imagine me covered in my own semen, Mom, because I've been thinking about you?" Her thighs definitely flexed on that question, and I couldn't swear, but I thought I saw a tiny shadow on the blue panties. "Do you know that sometimes I take your underwear out of the laundry hamper, and hold them close to my face at night? That between your legs you smell like mushrooms, and damp earth, and perspiration?" I looked at her eyes, and did not know how to interpret the fact that they were closed. I didn't know how much time was left, but it felt like it was running out. The shadow I thought I had seen on her panties was more distinct now. "All of the rest of the women in the world are at a terrible disadvantage, Mom, because they're not you and never will be and I will probably hold that fact against whoever I end up marrying. When I came in the bathroom tonight, it was just a sort of stupid, impulsive thing to do. And I can't undo it. But tonight, when you're alone in your bed, know that I am alone in mine, and awake, and thinking about you. Thinking about how you look, and imagining that I might have washed you all over, or toweled you dry, and touched you in ways that I have never touched you before. Know that I am laying in bed covered in my own jism, and you are the reason." Her panties showed a dark wet blotch.