“Then why do I feel so…” I stopped as I groped for the proper word. Finally it popped out. “Shitty?” We didn’t cuss in the house. The worst it ever got was the occasional “damn” or “hell,” but beyond that I had been raised to be very guarded with my speech. And I’m sure that it wasn’t because my mother was a prude, either. She just taught me “cussing is the first resort of a simple mind.” I kind of took that one to heart.
She let it go, however, and didn’t reprimand me for using the cuss word. I guess, in light of the discussion, it fit into the proper context. She just smiled wanly at me and shook her head. “I honestly don’t know, son. I can tell what you’re feeling, but I can’t tell you why. I have some ideas, though.”
“Well, I’m all ears, because it’s beyond me,” I replied. “You say that I have nothing to feel bad about, but every fiber of my being feels exactly that. So what do YOU think it is? Because I don’t like feeling this way when you say I shouldn’t.”
“Guilt?” she offered. When she saw my perplexed expression, she explained. “I think I’ve made it very clear that I’m lonely and missing the feel of a man, our father in general and you in particular. So when our… when our genitals came into contact, however brief, I think your mind registered it and you reacted with fright. But, in doing so, you realized that you were depriving me of something you knew I wanted. I know you love me and you don’t want to be responsible for leaving me wanting for anything if you can help it. Hence: guilt.”
I blinked at her a couple of times in stupefaction. That was a possibility I hadn’t considered. And, in a strange way, it made sense. I just hadn’t expected it. So I nodded. “Maybe you’re right, Mom. But if you are, this isn’t just something you alone have to work through. I’ve got to work through it, too. Because… because I don’t like feeling guilty about you feeling lonely.”
“Well, like you said, Conrad. I’m all ears. Because I don’t know an easy way around the issue.”
I took a deep, pensive breath. “There is one easy way around it.” She raised a curious eyebrow expectantly. “We could, I mean, we might make… we could have sex.”
“Get it out of our systems?”
“See what it feels like, yeah.”
“And what if we like it?”
I gulped down my heart, which felt like it was beating a thousand times a second. I couldn’t believe that I had just suggested to my mother that we have sex and she didn’t slap me!
“If we like it?” I asked stupidly.
“Yes,” my mother answered calmly. “What if we find that having sex feels so good that we don’t want to stop?”
“Th-then, I, uh, I guess…” our eyes were locked on each other’s at that point and a hundred horses doing the Foxtrot couldn’t have diverted our attention. “I guess we, uh, keep doing it?”
“You don’t sound certain of that, son. Are you sure it’s something you want to try? In order to get this… distraction out of our systems, that is. I mean, one or both of us could be VERY distracted. It might take having sex together an awful lot before we’re over it.”
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