Two more glasses of wine emptied and we were getting all sentimental. We were embraced in a gentle hug, bodies pressed together side by side and cheek to cheek. I didn’t know how my hand caused the back of her negligee to rise up over the curve of her bottom, but I came to realise then that she was wearing underneath as my palm came to rest on her bare tailbone.
‘I missed you too, and all of this,’ I affirmed, now pleasantly more than just buzzed.
‘What else do you miss?’ she asked.
‘I miss not caring so much,’ I said heavily and sighed. She clutched tightly at my hands, her eyes baring her concern as they searched mine.
‘Well then don’t care so much,’ she simply stated. Then prodded insistently, ‘what else do you miss?’
I knew what she was getting at. I couldn’t contain myself for how hard I tried. A grin crossed my lips and I rolled onto my back and studied the faint cracks in the ceiling. I was instantly aware, as well, of one flat hand now smoothing across my flat belly, making little circles back and forth in the direction of my lower abdomen. ‘I miss that too…’
‘And for a moment here I thought she’d turned you into a prude.’ The irony of those words…
Though Carol had gone frigid over the last two years, where I had made the effort, she had been the one fucking somebody else behind my back. It made me question the validity of the principles I’d worked so hard to maintain.
Beneath the confines of my sweatpants I felt myself begin to stiffen and rise to the occasion. Imagine that your own mother could have such an effect, and that you never even had to hide it. I could try to hide it, but she knew what she did to me. It was the extension of who and what we were as family now, though we’d tried to stop it and to be ordinary, boring, mother and son.
In the end I guess we are what you always were; all of us. ‘Shall we get into bed?’ I asked.
‘Is that all I’m good for?’ she asked dreamily.
5
Sometime into the small hours I came around to find mum moving restlessly under the covers. It was hot under there. Thanks to the alcohol we’d fallen asleep spooning, pressed tightly together. I opened my eyes to nothing but the black silhouette of her face, the curve of her throat, and then as she moved back the duvet, the mound of her breast. Then she adjusted the straps of her negligee, but somewhat awkwardly.
‘Are you okay?’ I mumbled.
‘I’m sorry, darling,’ she whispered. ‘Could you turn the bedside lamp on? I haven’t the faintest idea what I’m doing…’
Sleepily I rolled over to the opposite side, grabbed the lamp’s base and fumbled for the switch, squinting as the bulb snapped to life and all but blinded me. Next to the lamp, the clock read quarter past three. I turned back around then only to be faced with a visual that left my eyes poking out instead.
Mum had somehow twisted herself up in her negligee, the shoulder straps having fallen down, leaving her bare fair-skinned 30F breasts squeezed out over the neckline. ‘I’m just going to take it off,’ she said absently. ‘It’s hot enough under here already…’
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